Alien Nation
by Starway Man
Summary: A chance encounter goes wrong during the 1970’s, and it all ends up in a very different future. Eventually YAHF as well, Angel season 2 style. COMPLETE
1. Turning Point

**Date written**: Thu 9 Apr 2009

**Author**: Starway Man

**E-mail**: theop at kew dot hotkey dot net dot au

**Disclaimer**: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar, Kuzui, Fox, WB and UPN. Anything to do with Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Paramount, and CBS. All other references you can recognize belong to their various owners. Some of the text is from the various TV episodes, and so does not belong to me of course. No profit will be made from this work, like that actually needed to be said.

**Rating:** Overall R, with mostly PG-13 parts.

**Symbols: **" " denotes speech, ( _italics_ ) specifies thoughts, and # # indicates phone voice.

**Main characters**: Ensemble

**Warnings**: There is some violence, bad language, character death and mention of attempted rape in this story.

**Acknowledgments**: Thanks to Buffyworld for housing the various TV show transcripts, which were used in the writing this fanfic. Thanks, too, to the Star Trek Memory Alpha website for all the reference material used during the research for the fic. Also, my deepest gratitude to my beta readers, Nodakskip, Jeff Jacoby and Greywizard: what with all the false starts and wrong turns, this story couldn't have been completed without their help.

**Classification**: Action-Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, YAHF

**Author Notes:** The fanfic is dedicated to the memory of Andy Hallett, 1975-2009.

**Summary**: A chance encounter goes wrong during the 1970's, and it all ends up in a very different future. Eventually YAHF as well, Angel season 2 style.

**Title**: Alien Nation

***

"Mr. and Mrs. Spock need to mind-meld now."

(Cordelia Chase, ANGEL)

"The Link was paradise. But it appears I'm not ready for paradise."

(Odo, STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE)

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."

(John Donne, Mediations XVII, 1624)

***

**Part One: Turning Point **

**East End, London, England**

**April 2****nd****,** **1975**

The small flat literally reeked of sex and drugs and rock 'n roll.

It was spring, and life was good for Rupert 'Ripper' Giles as the man lounged around on the couch watching TV. Ever since he had dropped out of Oxford and come to London Town to live his life as HE wanted to live it, instead of the rigid and stifling path he'd felt forced into ever since childhood, the British man had truly felt alive. Alive for the first time ever since Giles had been informed of his so-called destiny, back when he'd been ten years old.

( _Shut your face, old man_, ) 'Ripper' told the image of his father, who occasionally appeared in Giles' mind to angrily chastise his son for daring to deny his family's wishes. ( _I'm done with you and your bloody Watchers! I've got my own family and friends now. And if that pisses you off, so much the better!_ )

This so-called 'family' consisted of five individuals who were named Ethan Rayne, Philip Henry, Thomas Sutcliff, Randall and Deidre Page. They, along with Giles, liked to think of themselves as people who they could do whatever they liked, and to whom the rules did not apply. People who were free in every sense of the word, however foolish and dangerous such an attitude was.

Giles became distracted as he heard various moaning and thumping noises coming from one of the bedrooms. Philip and Deidre were no doubt screwing each other's brains out again. Personally, Giles didn't know why Deidre was also doing Ethan behind Philip's back, but bloody toffing hell – if the woman was even half as good a lay as Ethan liked to brag about in secret, then Giles figured he might have to try her out himself one day.

( _Not today, though._ ) Getting rather annoyed, Giles just threw a boot at the bedroom door so as to get the two rutting animals to keep it down to a dull roar, and then he turned up the volume of the small, battered television the group had recently procured. Unfortunately, there wasn't any weed around for him to smoke, the wireless wasn't working and Giles knew better than to perform a minor demon summons just because he was feeling bored, so this would have to do.

Starting to get pissed off at finding nothing worth watching, Giles began changing channels. Finally, he settled on some sci-fi thing from the 1960's that had recently arrived from the other side of the pond.

( _What's it called again?_ ) Giles frowned before he finally remembered the name of the TV show, just as he watched the male lead called Captain Kirk kiss the beautiful black woman known as Lieutenant Uhura. ( _Star Trek, that's it._ )

Just then, the sound of the front door opening distracted Giles from his recreational activity. He knew that it couldn't be Ethan or Thomas, as those two had said they would be away all night for something or another. So there was only one person it could be.

"Oy, Ripper! There you are, mate!" Randall called out cheerfully. "Come 'n say hullo to me new bird!"

"Sod off, you bloody imbecile," Giles grunted without even looking at him or the woman he'd brought home. "Can't you see I'm busy watching the telly? Just go shag the tart in your room, and then get rid of her afterwards!"

"That's not very nice what you're sayin', pet," a female voice with a Chislehurst accent said seductively. "Why don't you come 'n look into mummy's eyes, then?"

A crawling sensation suddenly travelled down Giles' back, as he finally turned towards the newcomers – and that was when he saw that Randall's new sex toy was way too pale, and her eyes suddenly became yellow as the vampiress morphed into her demon face. To someone with Rupert's background, there was no question of denial or of not living in what might euphemistically be called the 'real world'.

"You stupid git! You invited a damn vampire into our crib!!" Giles yelled at Randall in fury, instinctively reaching for a crucifix before remembering he no longer had one. He then got up and quickly backed away, looking for a weapon with which to defend himself.

"I'm Drusilla," the young-looking woman identified herself, almost absently grabbing the shocked Randall by the neck to prevent him from getting away. "What's your name?"

"None of your business, leech," Giles told her roughly, still looking for a weapon of any sort as a brief biography of the infamous vampiress quickly ran through his mind. The last thing he wanted to do was give Drusilla any advantage, whatsoever.

Originally sired by the vampire known as Angelus during 1860, Drusilla had been a natural-born seer in mortal life, cursed with the gift of second sight. Oddly, even after becoming a bloodsucker the gift had remained, despite Angelus driving her completely mad; and thus, ever since the 19th century, Drusilla had spent a lot of time talking to the moon and the stars and her dolls, especially the one named Miss Edith.

"Miss Edith can be SO naughty," Dru said as she slowly began to sway side to side. "First I got a peep of you 'n your friends, but then I had a glimpse of my kitten and a big fire in the sky. Then I saw Grandmother and Great-grandfather, far away in the dale o' the sun. But the whole town went away, deep down where I couldn't see them no more."

She paused, trying to catch Rupert's eye. "Do you dream 'bout your grandmummy, my li'l Jack the Ripper?"

Giles again felt a frisson of fear. The female vampire was insane, that much was already obvious, but what was less obvious was that she was most likely clairvoyant or precognitive to some degree as well, given her little nickname just now. It made dealing with the damned hellspawn all that much harder, unfortunately.

"Grandma Edna? Can't say I've had the pleasure lately," Giles tried to stall while Randall kept moaning in fear, annoying the hell out of the older man.

Just then, the bedroom door opened at the worst possible time and both Philip and Deidre came out, only half-dressed. "What the blinding blue blazes is goin' on out 'ere?" the male part of the equation demanded. "Can't we have some bloody peace and quiet for once?"

At that moment, Drusilla made eye contact with Giles – and with a horrifying look of triumph, she snapped Randall's neck like it was kindling.

"NO! RANDALL!" Deidre screamed, as her brother dropped dead right in front of her. A rictus of pain the last thing ever to be seen on the young man's face.

"Oh dear, I've made such a mess. Oh well, ta-ta for now," Drusilla said in a sing-song tone of voice as, to everyone's amazement, she just turned around and simply pranced out the front door.

***

**Just outside the Sunnydale town limits, southern California**

**March 23****rd****, 1986**

Ethan Rayne filled his lungs with fresh air, resting his hands of the steering wheel of his convertible. He stared at the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign, a look of unholy anticipation on his face. He then turned to face his companion.

"Can you smell it? That's power, mate," Ethan declared with a wide smile. "The power of the Hellmouth. And it's just waiting for us to use it!"

Giles snorted from the passenger seat. "Pull the other one, Ethan. 'Cause it's never that simple, remember? Maybe you've forgotten Cleveland, but I haven't!"

Ethan waved dismissively at that. "Ripper, you worry too much. And hell, all that's in the past now anyway. Come on – we're gonna have a ball around 'ere!"

Giles snorted again and leaned back in his seat, as the bad guy version of the Dynamic Duo drove into the town built upon on the mouth of Hell. Rupert's lip curled up slightly as he watched the houses fly by, contemptuous of all the fools who deliberately chose to live here whether they were aware of the supernatural or not.

It had been a long time ever since the East End during the 1970's. He and Ethan had been living as illegal aliens in the U.S. for several years now, causing trouble and making a few quid on the side as well. If pressed, Giles had to admit he rather missed England, but the Watchers had made it too uncomfortable for them there. It had been his father's dying wish that the Council make sure he and Ethan were finally taken care of, that bloody bastard.

( _And to think, I almost became one of those sanctimonious old farts!_ ) These days, it embarrassed Giles to remember the time after Drusilla had killed Randall. That was when his destiny had truly taken a left turn for the worse, even if he wasn't aware of it.

The group had completely fallen apart after the man's death. Deidre had become a hysterical mess that no one could placate or comfort, and Giles had almost gone running back to his father. But in this version of history, Ethan and Thomas had talked him around before it had come to that. Plus, the elder Giles' ire regarding what 'Ripper' had done ever since leaving Oxford had unfortunately sealed his son's fate.

Rayne and Giles had eventually struck out on their own, delving more deeply into the dark arts, growing in strength and becoming more and more in demand for those who could use their special talents.

And now, they were here to meet the honourable Mayor Richard Wilkins for what promised to be a highly profitable arrangement for both parties concerned.

***

**City Hall, Sunnydale, California**

**September 30****th****, 1986**

The Watcher named Quentin Travers briefly looked around at the office belonging to Richard Wilkins the Third (as well as the Second, and the First), before focusing his attention back onto the decades-old politician.

"Well, gosh! Welcome to Sunnydale, Mr. Travers. It's been a while since I've had the pleasure of English good manners," Wilkins said with a charming smile to his guest.

It was all an act on Richard's part, and Quentin knew it, too, but if there was one thing he had learned during his career, it was knowing when to play along to reach his goal. "It's a pleasure to meet you on my behalf as well."

"You know, normally, I don't see people on such short notice like this. But you sure seem to have quite a lot of influential friends," the Mayor remarked shrewdly.

"Well, one tries," Quentin said self-deprecatingly.

"So what can I do for you today, Mr. Travers?"

"You've got one chance, Wilkins. Hand over Rupert Giles, and I'll let you live," the Council operative suddenly dropped the pleasant demeanour.

"Rupert Giles, you say," Wilkins replied in kind, his real soulless interior rising to the surface as the chipper act faded. "And who might that be, if I may ask?"

"Please, spare me the act that you have no idea who I'm talking about; I know for a fact that he and that other ne'er-do-well, Ethan Rayne, have been your guests in this town for the last six months or so. So if you hand Giles over to me now, I won't kill you. It's that simple," Quentin told the demon-worshipping mage.

"Nothing's ever that simple I'm afraid, Mr. Travers," the Mayor now had his charming mask back in place. "And unfortunately, I couldn't help you even if I wanted to. Apparently, the gentleman in question vacated the town limits yesterday, or so rumour has it."

Travers sighed; he'd been afraid of that. Of course, it was possible and even likely that the Mayor was a liar, but personally he doubted it. Quentin had interrogated enough captives since the 1970's to know when someone was lying to him or not. "And where, pray tell, did he go?"

The Mayor suddenly looked bored. "I'm afraid this interview is over, Mr. Travers. And regrettably, I'm also afraid that I can't let you leave the building alive, either." Richard reached under his desk for the hidden buzzer to summon his vampire guards.

Many seconds later though, Wilkins became slightly concerned as no one bothered to show up. "Well, now, what's going on out there-?"

"Your guards are no longer in any condition to aid you, Wilkins," Travers told him simply. "My men will have taken care of them all by this point, as well as your pet demons in the basement. Come now," Quentin said with a hint of true pleasure in his voice. "Did you actually think that I would walk straight into the lion's den without taking steps to protect myself? Tsk, tsk. You underestimate me badly."

"Actually, I'm afraid you're the one who underestimated me," Wilkins said pleasantly. The demon-worshipping mage suddenly shouted in Latin, "Eximo!" The Watcher was instantly encased in a sphere of green light, and briefly invisible to sight.

Richard Wilkins was stunned, however, when instead of being banished into a hell dimension, Travers continued to stand there in his office after the green light was gone. The Mayor had, indeed, foolishly underestimated his opponent's resourcefulness, even if he'd had no way to know that the British man had warded himself against all forms of magical attack before ever setting foot in Sunnydale.

Travers said simply, "Bon voyage." Then, Quentin took out a handgun and shot six bullets into the other man's chest, the blood spraying all over the room as the Mayor died in a very messy and painful way.

After all – it would have been well over a decade before Richard Wilkins could have ever made himself invulnerable to physical harm, unfortunately for him.

***

**Just outside the Sunnydale town limits, southern California**

**April 9****th****, 1987**

Alexander 'Xander' Harris, roughly six years old, was kind of nervous as he didn't know what was really going on.

Ever since the Mayor had been killed, he'd noticed that there seemed to be fewer and fewer people in Sunnydale with every passing day. It had been impossible for him not to notice that; he was a fairly bright child, even if he was a bit slow in math and spatial relations. However, Xander was too young to understand that the authorities had ordered the evacuation of all the citizens of the California Hellmouth, or why the Watchers had arranged for such a thing to happen.

It hadn't been too hard to pull off, actually. Not only had a lot of people left willingly, now that the Mayor was no longer around to control the local demons, somehow the town had also lost most of its charm for the human population. The Council had used its influence and had Sunnydale declared to be on a dangerous fault line by the state governor's office. Thus, all fifty thousand people had been evacuated ASAP after a recent earthquake had convinced even the sceptics that the climate would be more congenial for them elsewhere.

All Xander knew was that his friends from kindergarten, Willow, Jesse and Cordelia, had left one by one and now he had no idea where they currently were. To a six-year-old, such a loss had been practically unbearable. But now, apparently, it was his turn to leave as well, and the little boy had no idea what the future held.

"Mom? Where's Dad?" Xander asked suddenly as the car sped past the 'NOW LEAVING SUNNYDALE - Come back soon!' sign.

"I don't know, honey," Jessica Harris said absently, concentrating on her driving. The truth was though that she suspected her husband, Anthony, had gotten drunk again last night despite her pleas for him to remain sober. The odds were that he was sleeping it off somewhere alone, with a hangover just waiting to pounce on him when he awoke.

The redheaded woman didn't care either way, though. Enough was enough. The evacuation meant that she finally had a chance to escape Sunnydale with her son and start a new life for them both far away in Los Angeles, and Jessica was grabbing it with both hands.

As the Ford vehicle raced off down the highway, the Watcher named Robson watched it depart with a grunt. "That's the last of them, right?"

"Indeed," a young Watcher-in-training named Wesley Wyndham-Pryce nodded affirmatively after looking at his clipboard.

Travers surveyed La Boca del Infierno with a look of distaste and then said, "Let's get on with it, then."

"Ladies, if you please?" Robson said politely to a trio of women from Los Angeles, three sisters known as the Transuding Furies.

The Furies obliged, beginning their spell. They launched a mystical attack on the mystical convergence-slash-nexus, slowly cleansing it of the malignant supernatural energy and sealing the gateway to Hell, which unexpectedly caused an earthquake.

The whole town started collapsing in on itself, being sucked down into the depths of the earth. Buildings which had been the pride of Sunnydale vanished as they fell down in a cloud of dust and dirt. The quake grew in severity as the hole expanded, larger and larger; until finally, Sunnydale was completely gone and even the signpost fell down into the immense crater once the quake was over, lost from sight.

"Good Lord," Wesley managed to say, moving back a little even as he felt annoyed with himself for showing weakness in public. "Robson, what have you done-?"

"WE have just eliminated an enemy demon stronghold," Robson interrupted, gesturing down to where the remains of Sunnydale were. "Whatever creatures were left down there before the last evacuees departed that bloody town, they're in no position to worry us now. Which is all for the best, wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Wesley pulled himself together. "Still. This does seem a rather overboard way of going about it, surely?"

"In this business, boy, there's no such thing as 'going overboard' about anything," Travers snapped towards his protégé.

Robson would have added more to that, but the three sisters started dragging him back to his car to go to LA and pay them for services rendered. And the thirty-year-old Englishman had to admit, having sex with three beautiful women like these as his payment for the contract?

There were definitely worse ways to discharge a personal debt, to be sure.

***

**Just outside Hemery High School, Los Angeles, California**

**October 28****th****, 1996**

The balance demon named Whistler watched from his car, an old and rusted Chevy Impala, as the blonde girl named Buffy Summers and her friends came out of the building at the end of the school day. And unlike what could have been – what should have been – he was watching the human females all alone.

Whistler shook his head. ( _How did things ever end up like this?_ )

He knew that almost a hundred years ago the vampire known as Angelus had been given his soul back, in order for him to help the newly-called Slayer save the world from the threat of Acathla; a potential apocalypse that had been scheduled to happen in around eighteen months' time. But now Angel's help wasn't necessary, as that particular stone statue was buried beyond the reach of both man and demon in the crater that used to be Sunnydale.

All thanks to the snowball effect from one tiny change in the timeline, twenty-one years ago.

Which in turn meant that, as far as Whistler knew, the tormented vampire with a soul was still in Manhattan right now, drifting along the fringes of human society, living as a bum and dining on rat blood as often as he needed to. The messenger for the Powers had seen him do it and, personally, he thought that there was a good chance the Stink Guy would off himself in a few more years from the way things were going.

( _Well, never mind, no great loss if that happens._ ) Whistler's job was to maintain the balance, and if the situation was now such that his personal intervention was no longer necessary, then so much the better. Mind made up, the human-looking demon quickly drove off as the Watcher named Merrick finally found his Slayer in the City of Angels.

Whistler would have been wise to stick around, though, as a mercenary demon named Skip was present not far away in a Lincoln Town Car – along with Angel. The silver armoured creature was nudging the Grandfather along his necessary path, although he was careful not to draw any undue attention to the Mother or the red witch at this point in time. The bad guy just pointed out the new Chosen One to the vampire, and pretty much let destiny take its course.

Skip was being paid a freaking fortune by his employer – a rogue former Power – to carry out her plan, after all.

***

**Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina**

**February 20****th****, 2000 **

The years had passed, and while Buffy the Vampire Slayer was still constantly kicking ass long after graduating high school – by contrast, the medical intern named Ben Maxwell was not having a good shift.

He'd had to deal with a number of problems recently, not the least of which was a man who had severe neck wounds as well as a number of holes in his chest and back. The odds weren't good that his patient would survive, and the doctor had both FBI and other police types breathing down his neck to make sure the victim lived long enough for him to talk to them about what had happened.

Ben shrugged to himself. Perhaps his mother had been right, and he should have gone into psychiatry. He might have had a nice two-couch office on Park Avenue as well as a summer place in the Berkshires within a few more years, and not have to deal with hard-nosed cops constantly demanding the impossible.

Unfortunately, though, Fate had other plans for the young man as without warning, he collapsed to the floor. Unconscious and alone, Ben began to convulse, and his physical appearance began to ripple unsteadily as his body – a shell meant to forever imprison something from a hell world beyond imagination – finally failed to fully contain the hellgod within.

Glorificus, or Glory as she preferred to go by, only had a moment's worth of freedom before her energy expired and she had to let Ben have his body back once more, retreating deep within her host.

But the real victory had already been won.

Far away in Eastern Europe, the Key was no longer safe.

TBC...


	2. Awakening

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and sent feedback, please keep 'em coming.

***

**Part Two: Awakening**

**Nob Hill, San Francisco, California**

**February 21****st****, 2000**

Rupert Giles stared at himself in the mirror, and suddenly wondered where the bleeding hell the last twenty-five years had gone.

Sometimes he couldn't believe that he was now well into his forties, that he had spent over half a lifetime travelling with Ethan Rayne and constantly getting into one mess after another in their quest for power and riches. But the thought of abandoning his partner never occurred to him. Because as matters stood, who or what else did Giles have left in his life?

His grandmother had passed away years ago, and none of his other relatives even wanted to know that he was alive anymore. Rupert had no wife or children, and apart from his occasional dalliances when he was either drunk or stoned, Giles had never even thought about women that way ever since three years ago. That was when the sleepwalker demon known as Eyghon had come back into his life, unfortunately.

That had been a very nasty time for all the old gang, to be sure. Philip, Thomas, and Deidre had gotten together to talk about old times, and Thomas had had a VERY foolish notion about reclaiming their glory days. Eyghon had possessed him whole, and not long afterwards, the demon had killed Deidre and possessed her after Thomas's body became a puddle of slime. Philip had been smart enough to seek out his last two remaining companions and between them, the male trio had eventually managed to defeat the sleepwalker demon, even if Philip had lost his life during the battle.

Right now 'Ripper' and Ethan were here in the City by the Bay, trying to give Travers and his minions the slip once more. Even though Quentin was now the second-in-command of the Council, he still hadn't abandoned his pursuit of Giles and Rayne. Decades worth of personal effort was at stake, after all, and the dogged persistence of their adversary might have been admirable to the two fugitives – if it wasn't so damned annoying at the same time.

Giles wiped his face with the towel, and then went back to his bedroom. He had a lot of thinking to do.

***

**Angel Investigations, Los Angeles, California**

**February 25****th****, 2000**

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce tried not to listen as his co-worker, the incredibly sharp-tongued nineteen-year-old girl named Cordelia Chase, started ranting about their missing-in-action boss. He already had a headache, and didn't wish to add to it any more than he had to.

The British man suddenly wondered how on earth he had ever ended up here ever since graduating from the Watcher Academy, an event which had taken place not long after the California Hellmouth had been sealed. If he took the trouble to trace the path back in his mind, though, Wesley would have told you that it had all started with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Cleveland, and not what he had helped do to Sunnydale back in the 1980's.

After Merrick had been killed towards the end of 1996 and the blonde Slayer expelled from Hemery High School for burning down that vampire-filled gymnasium, there had been no Sunnydale for the Summers family to head off to. So Buffy and her mother Joyce had been shepherded into heading east to the other, less active Hellmouth in Ohio. Once they'd arrived, Robson had been dispatched there to be her new Watcher.

Unfortunately, the man had died not long after Drusilla and the vampire known as Spike, a.k.a. William the Bloody, had shown up in town. There had been no 'Scooby Gang' backing up the Chosen One, and Robson had been murdered when Spike had attempted to heal his mad sire of her affliction. A terrible weakness Drusilla had fallen victim to when a mob in Prague had done unspeakable things to her during the early 1990's.

Anyway, Wesley had been sent to take over for his predecessor during Buffy's junior year of high school. But Miss Summers had rejected his presence there in no uncertain terms, the headstrong and defiant girl deciding to quit working for the Council rather than have to deal with an inexperienced prat like him. And in one very simple and depressingly clever move, Buffy had told her mother about the "creepy guy constantly stalking her", so Wesley had had to hightail it out of town before the Cleveland PD tracked him down and threw him behind bars.

Quentin Travers had been furious about it, of course. He had persuaded the head of the Council to fire Wes from the organization, and not even pay for his airline ticket back to England. Thus, Wyndham-Pryce had become a 'rogue demon hunter', even though such a title had been completely iffy at best. Luckily for the ex-Watcher, though, he had eventually stumbled upon Angel and his female seer whilst on the hunt for an evil empath demon named Barney. And after the excitement was over, Wes had stayed on with the LA detective agency, taking the place of a half-Irish Brachen demon named Doyle.

Cordelia said to the Englishman, "We should call the police, fill out a missing persons report!"

"We can't do that yet. He's only been gone one night," Wesley told her. "And Angel CAN look after himself, you know."

"One LONG night, during which he was supposed to check in with us and didn't," Miss Chase insisted. She didn't want anything to happen to the ensouled vampire, as this job was the former rich girl's only source of money until her movie star career finally took off. "And Angel's not someone who tans well, you know."

Wesley shrugged. "He's probably just holed up in a tunnel somewhere, waiting for nightfall."

"Maybe," Cordelia was starting to look angry. "But what if he's being tortured right now, and wondering what the hell's taking us so long to track him down? Come on, Wesley, we can't just sit around here on our asses! Well, I can't anyway!"

"All right, fine." Wesley went over to the weapons locker, deciding it would be better to get out of here rather than listen to the brunette's rants anymore. "I'll go see if I can find him."

"You're going to go look for that bookie?"

"He's the last person we definitely know Angel went to see," Wesley told her absently. "So that's as good a starting point as any, and better than most."

"Are we talkin' about the same bookie who's supposed to get his jollies by cutting off people's extremities?" Cordy looked a bit green, now somewhat worried about Wesley's safety. She had once been romantically interested in the man, before an utterly horrible kiss which had ended any prospects of a relationship between them right then and there.

Wesley opened a drawer. "That's why I'm taking this." He pulled out a crossbow. "Along with a few other things."

***

**Somewhere in Los Angeles, California**

**Later that night**

Xander Harris walked through the dark alley alongside his friend, Jesse McNally, keeping an eye out for trouble at all times.

Ever since the day that he and his mother had left Sunnydale, the Harris boy's life had gotten much worse instead of much better as one might have expected. Without a husband and provider, Jessica had had to get a job to pay the bills, but with her complete lack of useful skills all she could get was a crappy minimum wage waitress deal. The woman had been unable to make ends meet, and so eventually had resorted to the oldest female profession in the world in order to generate some extra cash for them to survive.

Unfortunately bad luck kept dogging her heels in the big city, and one day when Xander was eight years old, a knife-wielding maniac had stabbed Jessica in order to avoid paying for her 'services'. The surgeons had almost saved her, but after thirty hours, the woman was pronounced brain-dead and the life support machinery switched off when no adult next-of-kin could be found. Thus, her son had been put into the system, ending up in an orphanage on Plummer Street before getting farmed out to a foster family when he was nine.

That hadn't lasted long, though. Xander had run away after a certain – incident. And all things considered, it was lucky for him that Harris was used to waking up early, in order to be able to evade his foster father's groping hands.

The boy's terror at waking up to feel the person that was supposed to take care of him and protect him attempting to molest him instead, had been enough to make the young man always wake up before five o'clock in the morning, ever since.

His childhood hadn't been completely screwed up, though, fortunately. Xander had met a mechanic named Zeph by the time he was ten and the man had allowed the boy to crash at his auto shop garage on occasion, in exchange for free labour and the promise never to bite the hand that fed him by stealing Zeph's stuff. As the years passed, Xander had grown up and learned the mechanic's trade; which had proven very useful on occasion.

Like when it came to boosting cars for a joyride down to Santa Monica, or whatever.

"I'm telling you, I'll have the van fixed within the next week or so," Jesse insisted, dumping some more mezcal down in his throat. He, too, was the product of a broken home, even if he wasn't an orphan like Xander, and he had met Harris on the streets earlier this year. "All I need is some new brake pads – shocks, new tires, new engine maybe..."

"You're totally drunk, buddy," Xander told him. He didn't know why that bothered him. By this point in his life, Harris no longer remembered his father, even if the childhood feelings triggered by memories of whenever his dad got plastered were still there in his subconscious. Curiously, Xander did not remember Jesse or Willow or Cordelia from the ancient days of kindergarten anymore, either. It was simply too long ago, and too many other things had happened in his life since then.

"I know," Jesse chortled in reply to Xander's comment. "But when I get that car together, Cap'n Kirk-"

"Don't call me that!" Xander snapped, once again regretting that he had ever confided to his friend how he was a closet Trekkie.

"Whatever," Jesse smirked. "Anyway, bro, once I get the van mobile, let's bail, get out of this city."

"You wanna leave LA?" Xander asked in surprise, putting aside the annoyance. "How come?"

"It's a big world out there, dude," Jesse said, having another drink. "You gotta see it for yourself one day."

"Yeah, but-"

A fist with inhuman strength behind it sent Harris flying backwards, a bloodsucker in full game face punching his lights out after appearing out of the shadows and snarling incoherently. Then the vampire buried its fangs into Jesse's throat, draining him dry.

It wasn't exactly like it would have happened in another version of history, but it was close enough and just as lethal.

Tossing the male corpse aside, the undead thing headed straight for Xander, who was unconscious from the sheer power of the blow to his head. But on occasion, even a Harris can get lucky: and the soulless vampire suddenly found itself encased in a paralysing mucous that had been shot out of the nose of a Fyarl demon, just as it leaned down for its next meal.

"Like to crush. Crush now?" the Fyarl asked Whistler, who was standing alongside it.

"Knock yourself out," the messenger shrugged as the demon instantly whooped and hollered, pounding on the vampire who had killed Jesse until it was dust. It then lumbered off after Whistler paid the hulking creature for its services, and the short man in the hat dragged Xander off to his Chevy Impala not far away.

***

**Somewhere north of Hyperion Boulevard, Los Angeles, California**

**A while later**

Xander slowly came to with the worst headache of his entire life. "Ugghh – wha' happened?" he muttered.

"Good question, kid," Harris heard a stranger's voice with a broad Queens accent say. Blinking, the male teenager straightened up in the passenger seat and turned to face Whistler, who was staring at him with an indecipherable expression on his face. "Don't think you're gonna like the answer, though."

"Huh? What do you mean? And who are you?" Xander automatically reached for his knife, only to find it wasn't there.

"Name's Whistler. Well, lately it is," the balance demon shrugged slightly, tossing Harris his knife as a show of trust. "And what I meant was, right now your buddy's dead. Sorry, but I showed up too late to save him. As it was, I barely had time to save your tokus before you joined him in the afterlife."

Harris could tell that Whistler wasn't a liar; it was all in the eyes. So a whirling maelstrom of emotions instantly went through Xander's mind, even as a black hate was suddenly born in his heart for whoever had killed his only friend. "Who did it? Did you happen to catch a name? Or even a look at the guy's face, that'll do for now."

"Well, that's the thing, kid," Whistler nodded slowly, deciding to tell the truth selectively. He could already tell that the boy was filled with the desire for revenge, but this had to be handled carefully in order to channel his feelings into a useful avenue for maintaining the balance of good and evil. "I did get a look at who killed your friend. But I don't think you'd believe me if I told you what he was."

"Huh? Why not?" Xander demanded at once.

"Because the world you live in? It's just a sugar-coated illusion, bottom line," Whistler said bluntly, uncaring of the look on Xander's face. "I'm thinking I need to show you the real world before you start off on your little revenge crusade."

"Thanks for saving my life," Xander said brusquely, making as if to get out of the car and leave the nut job behind.

"I'm serious!!" Whistler's voice thundered within the vehicle, startling the male teen for a moment. "Now come with me. And whatever you do, don't freak out, okay? I need you to be focused for this."

With that, the messenger got out of the Chevy and began to cross the road. Xander was still in two minds about it, but eventually decided to follow Whistler on the off chance the guy actually had some useful information on who had killed Jesse. As Xander followed the balance demon into an abandoned building and down some stairs, he heard the sound of voices and music.

( _What the hell?_ ) Xander asked himself. ( _What is this place?_ )

"This is a karaoke bar," Whistler said without looking back, as if reading Xander's mind. "One catering to a very special class of clientele. What the hell, kid – it's a better place than most for me to do this. Now come on, I've got something to show you."

Frowning and grumbling about having to hand over his knife to the bouncer, Alexander Lavelle Harris froze in shock at the sight of the karaoke bar's patrons. They were – monsters, there was no other word for it. Creatures out of childhood nightmares, or at least other children's nightmares. His own childhood had raised the bar quite a lot on what actually constituted a nightmare, after all.

"Yes, they're demons. No, you're not dreaming. And yes, you're safe here in Caritas," Whistler impatiently answered all the questions running through Xander's mind. "This joint has got an anti-violence magic spell cast on it, so it's neutral ground – a sanctuary for everybody, good and evil alike. The owner of the place, that guy over there?" Whistler pointed towards the green demon with red horns calling himself Lorne. "He insisted on it. 'Cause as you mighta guessed, he's not from around here."

"What the hell is all this?" Xander choked out, staring around the club and its occupants. "If I'm not dreaming, how the heck can this be real?"

Whistler sighed; he really wasn't looking forward to this part. "Lemme tell you a story, kid. Basically, this world is a lot older than you know..."

***

**Caritas, Los Angeles, California**

**February 26****th****, 2000**

'Completely freaked' was a good way to describe the current mental status of a young man whose entire world had been shaken to the core ever since the midnight hour.

Whistler had told Xander many things earlier on within Caritas, not the least of which was the true history of the planet. He had also pointed out the various types of demons present, before indicating one of the few vampires within the establishment. The news that this was the type of creature which had killed Jesse had not gone down well with his human companion. Xander had studied the bloodsucker's demon face carefully, before launching into a series of questions.

Whistler had given him the Reader's Digest version of their strengths and weaknesses, before eventually leading Harris up to the stage of the karaoke bar. Horribly embarrassed, Xander had nonetheless managed to sing his favourite country and western song before Whistler had dragged him over to talk to Lorne.

"Well, pilgrim, gotta say – that was quite a performance. Not quite up to the standards of Willie Nelson or Waylon Jennings, of course, but still," Lorne said to his newest client with a smile.

"What can you tell us?" Whistler asked impatiently. He didn't know why this kid was so important, and why the Powers had earmarked him for Whistler's personal attention. Thus, he was hoping the anagogic demon could give him some answers.

Lorne, a.k.a. Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok clan, turned to face the balance demon. "Sorry, but there is such a thing as client confidentiality. If you want me to spill, then YOU have to wait outside."

Whistler looked exasperated but did as he was told, figuring he could get the truth out of Xander later. Lorne then looked to Harris and said, "Well, cupcake, I got some good news and some bad news for you."

"What's the bad news?" Xander asked straightaway, that was simply the type of person he was here and now.

"Your friend's definitely dead, and – you're not supposed to be here. I saw it, clear as day," the Host said apologetically.

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" Xander asked, looking confused. He was also suspicious of what this demon's intentions really were, not that he could be blamed for that right now.

( _Okay, obviously, baby steps are required for this one._ ) "Look, what I do here in my club – it's sorta like this." Lorne held up his left hand as he tried to explain. "Most people are supposed to be here in life." The green demon then held up his right hand, a few inches away from his left. "But for some reason or other, they're there. Basically, when people sing for me, I see enough so that I can put them back on the path they're supposed to be following." He then clapped his hands together to emphasize the point.

"But you, on the other hand..." Lorne fully outstretched his right arm, shaking his hand to show where he saw Xander was in life. "By the sweet sounds of Aretha, you're like way over here! Best as I can tell, something happened to you thirteen years ago that darn well shouldn't have-"

"Thirteen years ago?" Xander interrupted.

"You ever heard of a place named Sunnydale, studmuffin?" Lorne asked him.

"Yeah, it was a town up north that got destroyed in a big earthquake back in the Eighties," Xander replied, even though he was annoyed by the nickname.

"It was a lot more than that, my little strudel; it's where you were born. Sunnydale was the town built on the mouth of Hell, a vampire Shangri-La if there ever was one," Lorne told him in no uncertain terms, ignoring the look on Xander's face. "And from what I saw, well – even though I don't know why, it's where you and a whole lot of other people should have been right now. I'm sorry, but everything that's taken place ever since you were six years old – your mom and dad dying, the attempted rape by your foster father, even seeing all those people get murdered in that drive-by shooting when you were fourteen? All that shouldn't have ever happened to you," Lorne told him sadly.

Xander was openly gaping at the lounge demon by this point. "How did you...?"

"I told you, I saw it when you sang. I also saw your future, by the way." Lorne started scribbling down an address on a scrap of paper. "Here. You gotta go to this place, tonight. Right now. That nosy balance demon waiting for you outside, tell him to take you there – and don't pay any attention to whatever cryptic nonsense he may try to tell you along the way, either. Even though this Whistler character saved your life, it was because the guy was under orders to do so – and his agenda may not entirely mesh with yours."

"Wait up, Whistler's a DEMON? And he had orders to save my life – from who?" Xander demanded in disbelief.

"The Powers That Be," Lorne said simply.

"The Powers that be what?" Xander asked in confusion.

"Never mind. Just go, go!" Lorne gave him the bum's rush out the door. As he re-entered his club, the Host of Caritas was glad he'd been able to avoid telling his client the good news regarding the reading. Because he figured this version of Xander Harris definitely did not want to eventually become the newest member of Angel Investigations.

***

**A squalid neighbourhood somewhere in East Los Angeles, California**

**Not long afterwards**

"Well, I'll be damned," Whistler said mostly to himself, as he and Xander stood amongst a crowd of humans looking down into a demon fighting pit. "What the hell's HE doing here?"

"What are you talking about? And who's he?" Xander demanded, glancing at his demon companion. Harris wasn't in the best of moods right now, both because the atmosphere kinda reminded him of the movie "Mortal Kombat," and because there were too many questions the balance demon had refused to answer on their way over here.

"It's a long story, kid. But that vampire down there? Last time I saw him, he was a useless rodent in Manhattan. I thought the odds were that he'd have staked himself by now," Whistler replied. He then grimaced as Angel, who was fighting a demon named Val Trepkos, caught a wooden staff blow directly on the head.

"But I thought you said vampires didn't do that sort of thing," Harris looked confused as Soul Boy performed some pretty impressive gymnastic moves to stay in the game. A lot had happened tonight, and Xander was finding it kinda hard to keep all the information he'd acquired straight.

"Yeah, well, Rat Breath's different. He's the one and only vampire with a human soul in this world," Whistler said shortly, as down below Angel got the upper hand in the battle. "That means technically, he's actually a good guy..."

The messenger for the Powers trailed off, as both he and the human teenager watched Angel suddenly get off Trepkos, throw the fighting stick aside and walk away. The crowd instantly booed loudly. For his part, Val got back up and kicked Angel in the back. Anticipating an end to the fight the crowd quickly started chanting, "Killing blow! Killing blow!"

As Trepkos started to beat up on Angel, who wasn't even trying to block any of the punches anymore, Xander frowned. He had officially decided earlier on that he didn't like vampires in any way shape or form, but something about this guy not even trying to fight back bothered him. "Uh, so, shouldn't you be helping him or something?"

"That's not my job, kid," Whistler said frankly. "I can only help whoever the Powers tell me to help, and he ain't on my list anymore. So, unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned, Angel's on his own."

Down below Trepkos pulled back his fist to finish Angel off, who was in pretty bad shape by now. Demon and vampire stared at each other as the crowd kept yelling, "Killing blow! Killing blow!" But to Xander's amazement, Trepkos lowered his arm and stared up into the stands, a cold and menacing expression on his face. The crowd instantly fell quiet.

"Uh-oh. This don't look good," Whistler said nervously. "Harris, I think maybe it's time we departed the premises." He pointed at a man named Darrin McNamara, who was running the entire demon gladiator show. "Oh, crap, I betcha that guy's gonna off both of 'em now!"

Sure enough, the guards raised their weapons in command to McNamara's orders. But at that moment Wesley showed up out of nowhere, holding a gun on Darrin. "Call them off!"

"Screw you!" Darrin shouted, just as the doors to the pit burst open and the former demon slaves, now freed, began to storm the area.

The human crowds instantly started to scream and run for it. Xander lost track of Whistler as he was heaved along in the rush, and he ended up not far away from Wes and Darrin as they tussled for ownership of the gun. Harris looked around for the exit...

BANG!

Xander felt a white-hot bolt of fire lance through his shoulder, as he grunted in pain and fell to the ground. ( _Shit, that hurt!_ )

Luckily, he wasn't trampled in the stampede as a Good Samaritan grabbed him up and said worriedly, "Oh my God, you've been shot! That bullet would have hit me – I, I gotta get you to a hospital-"

"No hospitals," Xander grunted to Cordelia, for it was she. "They gotta report gunshot wounds to the cops, and I'm not..."

The former car thief wasn't able to finish his sentence, as he collapsed out cold from the shock and blood loss. That encounter with the vampire which had killed his best friend earlier tonight played a major role in Xander's lack of physical endurance, unfortunately.

***

**The residence of Ben Maxwell, Durham, North Carolina**

**The same time**

Ben was now fairly concerned about his state of health, even though a recent medical exam by one of his colleagues had assured him that there was nothing physically wrong that anybody could detect. The 24-year-old man had told his friend about the two recent blackouts he'd suffered, even though he didn't know what had happened when Glory had emerged from her prison. The host for the hellgod was worried about a possible tumour or aneurysm, even though the neurological examination looked fine and he was most likely just suffering from the stress of the job.

( _Yeah, right,_ ) Ben thought to himself cynically. ( _That's easy for them to say. Damn it, six years of med school and nothing like this ever happened! So why the hell would I start suffering from blackouts now?_ )

Ben had no answer for this question, at least not yet. But the Knights of Byzantium and Glory's worshippers, who were both currently looking for the one whose body contained Glorificus, certainly did.

TBC...


	3. Stages

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed and sent feedback, 'tis most appreciated! It's also exactly what a writer needs to keep going with the story, and so without further do...

***

**Part Three: Stages**

**Five miles east of West Huron, Cleveland, Ohio**

**February 26****th****, 2000**

The creed of a Watcher reads: in every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, however, could and would have told you that the Council could shove their pompous, overbearing speeches right up where the sun didn't shine. Because she was in charge of her own life, and had been ever since reaching the age of eighteen. On her birthday last year Miss Summers, instead of having cake and presents on the festive occasion, had almost beaten to death two Watchers who had attempted to inflict the Cruciamentum ritual upon her; just in order to prove a point.

Travers hadn't been pleased about it, but it was the consensus of the Council that Buffy should nonetheless be allowed to live, as long as she kept doing her job. Mostly because her age and experience consistently ensured a good kill count on the Cleveland Hellmouth. The odds were certain that some demon or vampire would get rid of her one day, and then the Watchers could finally get to work on the new Chosen One. An eventuality which, after the last two years, was something long past due to happen in the minds of many within the Tweed Brigade.

In any event, Buffy's life was very different in some respects than it would have been if Sunnydale still existed and yet, in other respects, almost exactly the same. The Summers woman was currently at a dance club, beneath which was the physical location of the Hellmouth, and ever since graduating high school she had worked here as a bartender. It made sense to get paid for doing her real job, after all, since there was no Council stipend to fall back on anymore.

It wasn't the worst of lives, true, but it was still a high-risk, high-stress, and lousy prospects type of deal. Due to Buffy's lacklustre grades during high school, and since her father was MIA and her mother couldn't afford to help pay for higher education, college was out as far as the Chosen One was concerned. Well, it wasn't as if she had a very long life expectancy, anyway, but it was still something to be regretted in the Slayer's mind.

Along with the fact that she couldn't seem to keep a boyfriend, of course.

It had all started back in 1997, when Billy 'Ford' Fordham had shown up in town and attempted to betray her to the local Master vampire in exchange for immortality as a bloodsucker. Not long afterwards, Buffy had briefly gotten involved with a danger junkie, the boy named Owen Thurman who had been born in Sunnydale. And to top it all off, there was the one who got away – the vampire with a soul named Angel.

The blonde Slayer was suddenly distracted from her musings by the sight of three white witches in the club, a trio of women whom she knew well. They had arrived in town last year and helped her out whenever things got hairy, they were an all-female Scooby Gang by any other name. They knew Buffy's secret identity since they had been recruited by the Transuding Furies back in Los Angeles and sent here to assist the Chosen One as Buffy saw fit.

The names of the blonde, brunette and redhead were Tara Maclay, Amy Madison and Willow Rosenberg, respectively.

Sometimes, Fate does surely love a good jest.

Of them all, Willow was the one Buffy knew best. This was due to them attending the same school back in LA, before the Chosen One had been forced to leave after that business with the Hemery High gym. Miss Summers had never even suspected her acquaintance of being a potential Sabrina back then; sad to say, but she'd considered the Jewish girl a complete nerd who would most likely never go on a date even once in her life. And yet now, Willow – along with Tara and Amy – was willingly boinking anyone she had to in the line of duty?

( _Like Angel used to say, it's always the quiet ones_, ) Buffy thought sadly. ( _I_ _should have known that no one could ever be that shy and sweet without a darker side eventually rising to the surface..._ )

At that point, the three witches disappeared into the crowd and Buffy suddenly spied someone who made her bare her teeth and snarl softly. The vampire who had been a thorn in Buffy's side ever since he had arrived in Cleveland.

"Hullo, luv," Spike said with a huge grin to Buffy, knowing the odds were that she wouldn't start a fight in front of all the civilians in the club. "How's tricks tonight?"

"You've got thirty seconds to get out of here before I stake you, witnesses or otherwise," Buffy growled at him, her left hand itching to plunge the stake it held into William's unbeating heart.

The soulless – not to mention unchipped, since the U.S. military unit known as the Initiative didn't exist in this world – vampire just kept grinning at the Slayer. "Now, now, pet. That's not very friendly, is it?"

"Where's your ho, Drusilla?" Buffy asked with complete contempt, ignoring his question. "Having a quick meal, or doing two or three guys in the men's bathroom behind your back?"

It was a cheap shot, but nonetheless an effective one, as Spike abruptly stopped smiling. Unfortunately for him, Drusilla was the male vampire's one weakness; William couldn't tolerate any slurs against his maker, it simply wasn't in his nature to do so. Neither was it in his nature to forgive and forget, anymore than it had been ever since he'd been turned into one of the undead back in 1880.

"I am going to kill you very slowly for that, Slayer," Spike hissed malevolently at Buffy, as he leaned in close enough for the teenage girl to smell the blood on his breath. "Very slowly and very painfully."

( _Oh yeah, I just scored a bull's eye!_ ) Miss Summers thought with hidden glee and gripping her stake tighter. "Then let's go outside, Spike. Finish this once and for all."

Spike was briefly tempted by the idea, but then recalled how tricky Buffy could be and how many problems his impulse control issues had landed him in over the past hundred and twenty years. "Not tonight, Slayer, I got other plans. But soon. Very soon I'll have you on your back in the alley outside, and then we'll see what fun really is." The double-entendre was perfectly clear in the vampire's voice.

But then William got a shock as Buffy laughed directly in his face. "You think you could handle me, Spike? When you can't even handle your own girlfriend? Oh yeah, I know about that – Angel told me everything about what your little vampire pack was like a hundred years ago, after you and the nutsack almost killed him with that damn restoration ritual. Believe it or not, I know exactly how many times your sire cheated on you before Angel's curse took place! So how's it feel knowing that you'll always be number two in Drusilla's heart, loser?" Buffy sneered at her mortal enemy.

By this point, Spike was so mad he almost literally couldn't see because of the red veil that had fallen across his eyes. Most likely Slayer and vampire would have started duelling to the death right then and there, if the screaming hadn't started. Someone had found Dru's latest victim in the bathroom, and somehow it distracted Spike from the fury and anger.

"Another time, Slayer," William the Bloody promised Buffy, just before he melted away into the crowds. "You and Angelus both, I promise you." The death threat in his voice would have been perfectly clear even to a blind man.

Buffy looked for him as she started running in the direction of all the screaming, but she failed to locate Spike in the mass of rapidly moving bodies. The Chosen One's only thought, as she ran to the nearby murder scene, was to wonder where Angel was and what he was doing right now.

***

**Los Angeles, California**

**The same time**

Angel was getting his wounds from the fight against Val Trepkos attended to in his basement apartment underneath Angel Investigations, just like Xander Harris, since Cordelia had heeded his plea for her not to take him to a hospital. Against her better judgement Cordy had brought the young man to her workplace after Wesley had taken care of Darrin McNamara. An intense conversation was currently taking place between the foursome, but that wasn't important right at this moment.

Because not all that far away, Rupert Giles and Ethan Rayne were having their own conversation-slash-argument. Giles was clearly not happy with his partner having spent all their money on what he considered to be a bad bargain. And he wasn't afraid to make his displeasure known.

"You bloody tosser, what have you done?!" 'Ripper' hissed, shoving Ethan up against the wall.

"I've done a deal for us with the local branch of Wolfram & Hart, mate. Come on, what's the matter? We've worked for worse people in our time," Ethan said persuasively, uncomfortable with Giles manhandling him like this.

"I'm not gonna work for those bloody shysters," Giles said slowly and clearly to Ethan. "And if you've got any working brain cells left you won't, either. You think you can pull one over on them, you idiot? They'll take your soul and feed it to those so-called Senior Partners, before feeding the rest of you to some demon or another in the nearest convenient hell dimension!"

"Now steady on, old man," Rayne finally released himself from Giles' grasp. "Look, I know what I'm doing-"

"Really? Just like you knew what you were doing in Las Vegas? That daft bugger you decided would be a good mark, he almost got both of us killed trying to get his stupid 'futures trading' scheme off the ground," Giles snapped in irritation.

"Now that wasn't my fault," Ethan protested just a little too much.

"Well, what about Rhode Island? You almost reactivated the bleeding Hellmouth located there, remember that particular fun night? That wasn't your fault, either, I take it?" his companion demanded.

"Look, Ripper. If there's something you want to say, after everything we've been through over the years – I think you should at least do me the courtesy of telling me straight out what it is instead of rabbiting on like this," Rayne said haughtily.

"Take a good look in the mirror, Ethan," Giles abruptly grabbed his partner and hauled him to the other side of the room. "Tell me what you see."

"I see you and me, same as always," Ethan croaked, his nose not far away from the glass.

"You wanna know what I see? A couple of blokes who aren't in their effing twenties anymore," Giles told him roughly. "Damn it to hell, Ethan, but I'm sick and tired of living like this. Always on the run, with that shitty Council on our trail. Not to mention that in a few more years, we'll be fifty. FIFTY! There are men we've met who'll be grandfathers by then. You know what? The last thing my grandmother ever told me, God rest her soul, is 'you can't keep this up forever'. And for the first time in my life, I'm thinking she was actually right, too."

Ethan didn't like the sound of this. It sounded as if his partner's Watcher heritage was finally rearing its ugly head, or else 'Ripper' was starting to lose his nerve from all the close scrapes recently.

So he mouthed all the appropriate words, convincing Giles he would get out of bed with Wolfram & Hart and they would try a different sort of lifestyle for a while in order to appease his best friend's grievances.

But deep down, Ethan was already planning a chaotic stunt of the kind that he hoped would restore Rupert's love for that which had lasted for the previous quarter of a century.

***

**Zeph's Auto Shop, Los Angeles, California**

**May 18****th****, 2000**

Xander got up from underneath the van that had once belonged to Jesse McNally, and grimaced at all the work required in order to make the vehicle street-worthy. Even though Harris was hardly a qualified mechanic, he knew enough about cars to recognize a long and expensive job when he saw one; and so, regretfully, he decided that the vehicle would have to be junked.

( _Sorry, buddy, but them's the breaks. Ah, Jesse, I really miss ya – I miss your gigantic belly laugh, your excellent taste in pornos, your big travel plans for us to see the world together. Hell, I even miss your lousy Star Trek jokes!_ )

"Hey, Xander! You done with that wheel alignment for the Caddy yet?" Zeph's loud voice came out of the man's office.

"No, but I will soon!" Xander shouted in reply, stretching the truth more than a little.

"Well, hurry up! It was supposed to be finished already!" the auto shop owner sounded very disgruntled.

"Yeah, yeah," Xander muttered, wiping his hands on his dirty coveralls. ( _Whatever you say, boss. Whenever you say 'jump', I say 'how high' and all that... _)

It was strange, but Harris had been getting less and less enthusiastic about doing his job here lately. Perhaps it was his knowledge of the real world, gained over the last few months, which made servicing under-performing cars for ungrateful customers much less tolerable. Xander assumed that being acutely aware of your own mortality made it a lot harder to put up with other people's crap, anyway.

That night when he'd accidentally been shot by Wesley, the young man had awoken in Angel's home getting the bullet removed and his shoulder being taped up. A series of questions had followed, with the vampire constantly interrupting to ask about Whistler – someone he had never actually met – and what exactly the balance demon's connection was to the Powers That Be.

Xander hadn't stuck around for too long, though. He didn't feel comfortable in the bloodsucker's home, and Wesley's profuse apologies for almost killing him had quickly begun to set Xander's teeth on edge. He'd just wanted to get out of there, despite the major-league brunette hottie he'd instantly become attracted to.

Xander's path had crossed that of Angel and his subordinates a few times since then, however. The male teen had met Angelus up close and personal about a month or so after getting shot. This was thanks to that FOOLISH actress named Rebecca Lowell hitting Angel with the drug called Doximall, during her pathetic attempt to get herself turned.

Needless to say, the vampire's actions after the whole 'artificial happiness' thing had been enough to make Harris decide he had to keep a closer eye on Angel, which was why he'd come to Wolfram & Hart's notice recently. That was pretty much unavoidable, after a demon assassin hired by the Special Projects division of the law firm had failed to kill the undead Champion; and Xander had also taken part in saving three blind children from being killed by Wolfram & Hart as well.

All of a sudden, Harris heard the sound of screeching tires outside the auto shop as a speeding car came to an abrupt halt. Moments later, the door flew open and Angel rushed inside. He looked...well, the vamp looked as if he'd just come from the middle of a war zone.

"I need your help," Angel said quickly, his words rushed and barely comprehensible.

"Yeah, well, I figured you didn't roar in here just to ask after my health," Xander remarked sarcastically. "What happened?"

"Cordy's in the hospital, and so is Wes. He's in the ICU, bomb blast. She's in the Neuropsychiatric Unit; I don't know for sure what Wolfram & Hart did to her, but Cordelia's under some sort of mystical attack," Angel babbled to his acquaintance, the urgency obvious in his features.

The funny part was though that he'd already had Xander with the opening sentence. The young man still owed Miss Chase for helping him after getting shot three months ago, and that was a debt he had yet to repay. "So what are we still doing here?"

"Harris! You can make eyes at your boyfriend on your own time. Now get on with fixing that Cadillac!" Zeph shouted from his office door, after witnessing the two of them talking instead of Xander working.

"Sorry boss, but I've got to go. This is an emergency," Xander said hurriedly, following Angel to the front door.

"AGAIN? That's it. You walk out that door, kid, and you're fired!!" Zeph roared as loud as he could, his blood pressure soaring as Xander came to a screeching halt. "We go back a long way, I know, but after the last few months – well, enough's enough! You gotta make a choice. Either you work for me, or you don't – period. So what's it gonna be?"

Xander stared at the man who had helped him and saved him from a life as a homeless drug addict or a gangbanger or whatever, when he'd been younger. With great reluctance, Harris symbolically tore off the badge from his coveralls that read 'Zeph's Auto Shop' and dropped it to the floor. He hated to do it, but the older man had given him no other choice – and most likely this would have happened eventually anyway, fighting the good fight against Evil simply wasn't compatible with a normal nine-to-five job.

Joining an impatient Angel in the ensouled vampire's 1968 Plymouth, the two men set off for St. Matthew's Hospital as fast as the car could go.

***

**The site of the Raising, somewhere in Los Angeles**

**Not long afterwards**

After dropping Xander off at the hospital Angel headed for his destination stealthily, having followed the forces of Wolfram & Hart here, but he wasn't so focused as to be totally unaware of his surroundings. He stopped and, right on cue, Buffy Summers stepped out of the bushes.

The vampire was astonished to see his ex-girlfriend, someone he had broken up with after Spike and Drusilla had (albeit briefly) left Cleveland. Nominally at least, this had been in order for Buffy to find someone else, someone who could give the Chosen One everything that he couldn't in life. "Buffy? What are you doing here?"

Miss Summers just shook her head, a bit disoriented after the teleportation spell by Willow, Tara and Amy. "Whoa, that was intense!" Buffy quickly focused on her former paramour. "My people tell me you have a problem, and that you could do with some help." She indicated the scythe Angel had recently acquired, "Oooh, may I?"

Angel hesitated, but nonetheless handed it over. "There's a bad guy in black called Vocah, he wears a mask and a hood. He used this to murder two of my sources after stealing a scroll from my office. He also put Wesley and Cordelia in the hospital."

The Slayer just raised her eyebrows at her ex's candid description of all that, and then nodded silently. Together, they quickly headed for a nearby crypt in the graveyard. As Buffy and Angel got closer to the crypt they could easily hear chanting not far off, thanks to their supernatural hearing.

"Five are without breath."

"Yet they live."

"Five are without time."

"Yet they live."

"Five are without soul."

"Yet they live."

The blonde Slayer looked at her companion and hefted the scythe. Even though he might have preferred to do it all himself Angel knew Buffy was stronger and a better fighter than he was, and so he said to her, "You take care of Vocah, I'll go after the scroll. Ready?"

"Whenever you are, honey..."

The lawyers known as Holland Manners, Lindsey MacDonald and Lilah Morgan suddenly got a rather nasty shock, as the two warriors for the light burst into the crypt. The demon known as Vocah instantly stopped chanting, and started to engage a battle of scythes with the Slayer.

"Lindsey..." Holland said sternly.

MacDonald grabbed the scroll to continue the ritual of the Raising, just as Angel showed up in front of him. "Hand it over, Lindsey!" the ensouled vampire growled menacingly.

"That's not gonna happen. It belongs to us," the attorney said simply.

Angel looked at him in contempt. Recently, the man had professed a desire to quit the demonic law firm and had asked for Angel's help to get away from its clutches; and yet, the ensouled vampire and his associates had learned that MacDonald had sold out for the proverbial thirty pieces of silver after those three blind children had been saved. "Us. You put your faith in Wolfram & Hart?"

MacDonald shrugged. "You said I had to make a choice..."

The vampire could tell now that this wasn't just going to be settled with words. "And you did."

Lindsey nodded. "Yeah. I had a crisis of faith – and I want to thank you for your help with that – but I see things more clearly now."

The Champion scoffed, "You don't see anything..." Without warning, Angel withdrew a stake and started dusting the five chained-up vampire sacrifices. And in less than three seconds, there was nothing but dust present.

"NO!!!" Holland yelled, his furious anger suddenly evident. "YOU'VE RUINED-"

Angel's stake then whistled through the air, and embedded itself in his trachea. Manners gurgled in horror as blood poured out between the wood and skin, before he collapsed down on the floor – dead. Lilah, who was no fool, instantly ran for it; she had been there that night when Angel had had his big fight with Val Trepkos, after all.

Lindsey stared at his deceased superior in shock. "You just-"

"Yeah, because I'm DONE playing games with you people," Angel hissed, as not far away Buffy embedded her scythe in Vocah's chest and killed him. "You decided to do something like that to Wesley and Cordy, well, you should know – what goes around, comes around. The gloves are now officially off. So hand over the scroll if you don't want to join your boss in Hell, Lindsey!"

MacDonald shook his head, as he contemplated recent developments. It was tempting to just hand the scroll over, but he knew what the Senior Partners would do to him if he did that. "You need the scroll to cure your seer friend, she's your connection to the Powers That Be. And since it was foretold that we would sever all your connections with them..." Lindsey suddenly placed the scroll into the flames burning in the urn beside him.

Buffy, who had been walking towards the two men, threw the scythe through the air at once and Angel caught it in mid-flight. With a mighty swing, the weapon flashed down and the vampire mercilessly hacked off Lindsey's hand at the wrist. ( _I told you the gloves were off now!_ )

The lawyer instantly dropped the scroll and screamed in pain, falling to his knees. Cradling his bleeding stump against his chest, Lindsey whimpered as Angel went to retrieve the singed prophecies of Aberjian from the floor beside him.

"Don't believe everything you're foretold," the ensouled vampire tossed back over his shoulder, as the blonde Chosen One looked at the lawyer like he was an offensive bug underneath her shoe and then both good guys left the crypt.

***

**Somewhere in a nearby demon dimension**

**The same time**

Skip the mercenary frowned to himself as he stared at his TV set. ( _Well, this isn't good._ ) The demon had been monitoring events closely tonight, as he knew this was one of the most crucial parts of his employer's plan.

Angel's sire Darla had been killed back in 1987 in the destruction of Sunnydale, just as Dru had foreseen many years before, and this whole series of events had been engineered to bring her back in order for Darla to become the Grandmother – the vessel that would eventually bring forth the 'miracle child', the human son of two vampires. In other words, he who would eventually become the Father of his employer.

Unfortunately though, Skip couldn't put in a personal appearance at the crypt to ensure the desired outcome; Vocah and his masters would have instantly known something was fishy and later hunted him down to make him talk. ( _The boss couldn't pay me enough to commit suicide like that, anyway._ )

Be that as it may, though, it was now evident that Darla would not be resurrected or at least, not the way the silver demon had anticipated would happen earlier on tonight. So, bottom line, his employer's plan was currently in complete disarray. Skip just shrugged to himself, wondering if the boss would change her mind and choose to use another pair of bloodsuckers (Spike and Drusilla, for example) as the Grandparents.

Then Skip felt all connection to the rogue former Power abruptly terminated as the higher beings up there finally got a clue and cleaned up their own mess, after perceiving the angry tantrum from their fallen colleague.

( _Shit! How'd that happen?! Aw, crap. There goes my Christmas bonus, I'll bet..._ )

Eventually the demon simply shrugged to himself again, switched off the TV, dug out some buffalo wings to eat and decided to move on to other clients. He had no overriding loyalty to the creature that would have been called Jasmine, after all – and like any smart mercenary Skip had already been paid up-front with regard to services performed for his former employer.

***

**Not far outside the monastery of the Order of Dagon, Czech Republic**

**August 23****rd****, 2000**

Three months had passed since the night of the failed Raising, and the life of Ben Maxwell the intern had turned into a complete nightmare.

The doctor had only yesterday discovered the truth, when after one of his ever-increasing blackouts he had reacquired his body – only to find himself wearing a designer dress, and a bunch of hobbits-with-leprosy type demons kneeling before him. It had been quite the culture shock for poor old Ben to hear what the bottom-feeder demons had to say, and to discover that his ultimate role in life, his reason for living, was simply to play host for a hellgod.

Suffice it to say that, initially, denial wasn't just a river in Egypt. Right now, though, the human had no idea what the situation was and so turned to Glory's minions. "What the hell's going on? Where am I?"

"We are permitted to tell you, sir, the one who houses her Indescribableness – absolutely nothing," Glory's chief minion named Jinx told Ben steadfastly.

"The periods of time in between when her Magnificence emerges from her prison are definitely shortening though, you must admit," another minion named Dreg said to the one named Murk.

Jinx looked at him in annoyance. "Did you not hear me when I said we are to tell the human nothing?"

"Well, technically he didn't. We were having a private conversation about the most Groove-tastic One," Murk told Jinx in annoyance, as he wanted to be the hellgod's number one minion himself.

"You people are all crazy," Ben said with finality, but as he started to walk off – Glory emerged yet again, the body morphing into its female aspect.

It was fortunate for Ben's sanity how he had no memory of what Glorificus did when in charge of his physical form; otherwise, the slaughter of all the monks which took place over the next few minutes might have driven him nuts. Still, the evil hellgod failed in her objective to obtain the Key as the holy men safely hid it and integrated it into the Slayer's life, just in time.

In Cleveland, Dawn Summers had just been born.

TBC...


	4. Switch

See Part One for disclaimer and details. A big thanks to everyone who's sent reviews and feedback, as always it's much appreciated. Now, some of you have been asking - when the heck is the Halloween part of the story gonna start? To all those I say, your patience shall be rewarded: your endurance shall not be in vain. And now, on with the story...

***

**Part Four: Switch**

**Watchers Council Headquarters, London, England**

**August 26****th****, 2000**

"So tell us, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce, why have you called an emergency meeting of the Council today?"

Quentin Travers's sneering question was aimed at Wesley's father, the bearded older man named Roger. Once they had been friends, but ever since Travers had been responsible for getting Wes dismissed from the Watchers, there had been a terrible falling out between them. So Roger simply glared at the number two man of the organization for a moment, before getting back to business.

"I called everyone together because I now have concrete evidence that the hellgod Glorificus, or Glory as she has taken to calling herself, has begun her search for the Key," Pryce said stiffly.

The shocked silence that filled the room only confirmed the severity of the situation. After a moment, one of the Council members addressed Wyndham-Pryce, "Are you sure? Because that creature hasn't made an appearance for nearly two months or so, correct?"

"Yes, there was that episode in America previously with the Knights of Byzantium. But now she's surfaced again."

Roger motioned to his assistant standing behind him, who began to hand out a folder to all those sitting at the table. Once each person at the table had one, the middle-aged Watcher began his explanation.

"If you'll open the file before you, you'll see a picture of a monastery located in the Czech Republic. From what I've learned from my sources, the monks who resided there were the guardians of the Key. But if you'll turn to the next picture, you'll see that same monastery as of three days ago."

Some gasped, while others paled as they looked at the picture. Where there was once a grand and historic house of God, now there was only the shell of a destroyed building plus a lot of rubble.

The assembled Watchers quickly went through the rest of the pictures upon hearing Roger's instruction to do so. They saw images of bodies lying on the floor missing limbs, their faces frozen in horror by the rigor mortis. It was something that made even the most hardened of the Watchers present feel ill in their stomach.

"From everything I've been able to determine, Glory is responsible for all the death and destruction you see in these pictures," Wesley's father finished up.

The head of the Council who was sitting between Pryce and Travers said, "Roger, you mentioned before that Glory has BEGUN her search for the Key. I take it then, that she did not succeed in obtaining it from the monks?"

"I don't believe so."

"You don't BELIEVE so? What's that supposed to mean?" Travers demanded.

"It means there were no dead bodies either inside or outside the room where the Key had been stored in. My people in the field followed Glory's path into the place. Apparently, she went to the room in question, but once there she punched one of the walls into tiny pieces, possibly out of sheer frustration," Roger replied, but still refusing to look at Travers on general principles.

"That is hardly what I'd call concrete evidence," Quentin sneered at his adversary again.

"Yes, but that's because I've yet to mention how my men were able to find tracks leading into the woods surrounding the monastery, and in said woods they found traces of blood and torn pieces of cloth that matches the robes worn by the monks. My working hypothesis is that the relatively few survivors took or hid the Key, and fled."

"Do we know where?" a female Watcher asked at once.

"Unfortunately, no," Pryce answered.

Murmurs filled the room, as all those present whispered quietly to each other about the seriousness of the situation. After all, a missing Key – living energy with the ability to destroy this reality – was no trifling matter. The head of the Council then said to Roger, "Very well. So what do you suggest we do about the situation? After all, our wet works teams will almost certainly be of no use against a god, and the Slayer is currently operating without the direction of the Council."

In this reality Buffy was and always had been the one girl in all the world ever since Called to her duty, there had never been any opportunity for Xander Harris to twin the Slayer line. Thus, the potential Slayer known only as Kendra was still alive in Jamaica; and more importantly, the Watchers were currently in a bit of a bind about what to do.

"Miss Summers is completely hostile to us at the moment, granted," Roger answered. "But there might be another avenue worth pursuing."

"Such as?" the top Watcher demanded.

"Magic. As far as I know, that might be the one thing that Glory is not invulnerable to. Dark magic against this hellgod just might succeed in weakening her enough for more conventional forces – such as the Slayer – to finish her off. We'd need someone of great power in the dark arts, though, which isn't something our mages have any qualifications in. Council policy, as I'm sure you're all aware," Roger said rather snidely as he darted a glance to Travers, whom everyone knew was responsible for said policy.

Quentin almost flushed at all the stares being sent his way. "Do you have a specific someone in mind?"

"Yes, actually. Your old friend, Rupert Giles," Roger said with a certain amount of anticipation in his voice whilst concealing a smirk.

"That's OUTRAGEOUS!!" Travers committed a gross breach of protocol by standing up from his seat and shouting. "Not to mention impossible! That piece of scum is never-"

"Quentin! SIT DOWN," the head of the Council hissed at him like a snake.

Travers, still full of self-righteous fury, just glared at his superior before realizing the older man actually had the authority to have him taken outside and shot via a firing squad. Visibly swallowing his anger, Quentin quickly did as he was commanded. "My apologies, sir. If I may speak about the current situation, though?"

"I'm all ears, as I believe the colonials put it," his boss said, glancing hard in his second-in-command's direction.

"Thank you. Now as said, the Slayer is completely beyond our sphere of influence. And without the Slayer, we cannot hope to prevail even if Roger's plan to use dark magic against the enemy actually works. As mere mortals, we have no chance of success fighting Glorificus by ourselves; we need the Chosen One to fight our battle for us."

"So what are you suggesting? That we rebuild the Council's relationship with Miss Summers in order to deal with the current situation?" an elderly lady Watcher spoke up.

"On the contrary. We need to activate a new Slayer, effective immediately. One who will be on OUR side," Travers said firmly, daring anyone to argue against him.

There was another deadly silence, as everyone digested the implications of that. Roger eventually said, "A most logical course of action, Quentin. And you're volunteering to personally murder Miss Summers yourself, I take it? You do understand, this is something that can't be delegated – there must be no question of such an act ever being able to be traced back to any of us present in this room today. The damage that would do to the morale plus the loyalty of our Watchers in the field is too horrific even to contemplate. So I'll book you a seat on the next flight to Cleveland, shall I?"

Quentin's eyes widened in annoyance, that wasn't what he had intended at all. Travers had changed ever since the time he had killed Richard Wilkins, nowadays he considered such menial tasks beneath him. "You shall do no such thing!"

"Personally, I have my doubts about the veracity of Quentin's plan," the big boss said smoothly, giving his subordinate a face-saving way out. "A newly-called Slayer would be too inexperienced in terms of fighting and tactics to go up against a god and have any realistic chance of success. No, what we need is the current Chosen One working with someone who is not officially part of the organization, but is willing to aid us out of enlightened self-interest. After all, even our enemies need the planet to remain intact in order for them to survive."

Travers was the first one to realize what the leader of the Council meant by that. "Surely you can't be serious! That disgrace of a Slayer partnered with that-that-that arse, Rupert Giles? THAT cannot possibly end well for any of us!!"

"Perhaps. Nonetheless, I propose we attempt to make a white flag type contact with the man. Explain the situation, and offer Mr. Giles a temporary truce until the current problem with Glory is resolved," Roger suggested craftily. "What's the worst that can happen; he'll laugh in our faces and say no?"

"Rupert's father must be turning over in his grave right now, after listening to this!" Travers snapped viciously.

"Most likely. But as Edna Fairweather once said, war often makes for strange bedfellows," the head of the Council replied. He stood up and said, "Very well, Roger, you may proceed with your plan. As for the rest of you, start coming up with ideas on how else we might be able to destroy Glorificus, if the current strategy proves insufficient for our purpose. Quentin, see me tomorrow and we'll discuss options. That will be all."

The Watchers all stood up and left the room, Travers still seething with anger.

***

**Five miles east of West Huron, Cleveland, Ohio**

**September 22****nd****, 2000**

"I'm telling you guys, Dawn completely ruined my training session yesterday!" Buffy complained to her friends, as all four girls sat in a booth within Cleveland's version of The Bronze. Miss Summers was off-duty tonight, and just relaxing in her home away from home; she also had no idea that less than two months ago, she'd been an only child. "I mean, I was in the basement totally whaling on my sparring dummy, when she pokes her head in and says Mom wants me to take her shopping for school supplies. I mean, what's that about? What am I, Dawn's personal chauffeur?"

Willow, Tara and Amy just briefly stared at one another, as they were all familiar with Buffy's driving skills. While they were not yet at the stage of being able to complete one another's sentences, the way the Furies in LA could, over the last year or so this trio had developed a certain understanding between them.

"I'm sure your mother doesn't think that," Tara said soothingly.

"And Dawn doesn't intentionally try to upset you," Amy added.

"It's just she has needs, too, Buffy. It's gotta be hard for her – think about it, who else do you know has a big sister that's a genuine superhero constantly fighting Evil?" Willow finished up gently.

The Chosen One only looked more mulish and annoyed by the words from her friends. "Well, it's not just that – Dawnie constantly attacks me about the whole boyfriend thing as well! Like, when I came back from LA a few months ago? The first thing she asked was whether or not I'd had sex with Angel!"

The redhead cleared her throat nervously. "Uh, Buffy. You didn't, did you? I mean, ever since we found out that his soul wasn't permanently attached..."

"It would be too great a risk, what with the whole 'moment of perfect happiness' clause in the curse," Amy speculated.

"And from what I've heard from our teachers in Los Angeles, Angelus was briefly unleashed earlier this year, wasn't he?" Tara asked the blonde Slayer.

"Yeah, I heard that too. This guy, Xander Harris, he mentioned something about that when I was in LA," Buffy frowned.

"Who?" all three witches asked at the same time.

Buffy shrugged. "He's someone who knows Angel and his people – I dunno, I think he helps them out on occasion if they need an extra pair of hands for something. Anyway, he was watching over Wesley and Cordelia in the hospital back in May, while Angel and I were kicking the asses of the bad guys." Buffy wrinkled her nose slightly; that particular Englishman still wasn't one of her favorite people in the world, even after everything that had happened ever since high school.

"He, he sounds more like a trusted friend to me, if he was willing to do something like that for a vampire," Tara offered her opinion about Harris.

"I suppose." Buffy then changed the subject, "Anyway, like I said, I need some advice from you guys. How do I get Dawn to stop annoying me so much all the time?"

The conversation continued on, until the Chosen One had to get up and restrain a man who she knew fairly well; a club regular who was suddenly acting completely crazy.

Even though the blonde Slayer didn't know it yet, Glory had arrived in town looking for her Key.

***

**Abandoned warehouse, Los Angeles, California**

**October 6****th****, 2000**

Whistler closed the front door to the cobweb-filled building, as he headed for the centre of the room. It had been just over nine months since he had set Xander on his new path, so to speak, and despite the shaky start, the balance demon had to admit that the guy's actions ever since discovering the real world were pretty unexpected. Not to mention kinda fascinating, too.

Whistler knew that the Harris kid still harboured an intense dislike – even 'hatred' would not be too strong a word – for all those of the undead persuasion. And yet, somehow, he'd been able to put those feelings aside and work with the so-called Champion, especially when the seer's brain had been about to go into complete meltdown all those months ago.

It troubled Whistler to think about the Cordelia situation, though. Not because the visions would eventually kill her – what was a single human life in the grand scheme of things? – but rather, what effect the buxom beauty would eventually have on the walking corpse she worked for. Thanks to a lot of investigative work on his part, the Powers now knew what was coming soon enough, and NOBODY up there wanted Angelus unleashed upon the world again.

Whistler stopped in the middle of the warehouse, and looked up. ( _Okay, I'm ready._ ) Instantly a warm red light bathed the balance demon from up above, and Whistler knew that he had a 'go'.

"Hey, it's me. WKRP in Los Angeles – live and on the air, and all that."

"The kid? He's doing all right, same as Captain Hairgel. The British C-3PO and the womb with a view, ditto."

"Yeah, I know that Tact Girl is still getting the visions, but what am I supposed to do about that? Okay, fine. I'll keep an eye on her, even though I don't get – oh, really? How long before she bumps into them all? Right. Well, anyway, is there anything else I ought to know?"

"Glorificus?! Oh, come on, I'm entitled to get a bit carried away – that crazy broad is even battier than a Fyarl demon high on its own mucous! What? Hey, I already know those two British vamps are gonna be trouble. What I don't get is why they're not dust already! Oh, I see. Well, that sounds nasty, but whatever works I guess. Look, could you at least give me some sort of heads-up with the Hellmouth crowd, anything that'll happen to them that I might be able to prepare for down here?"

The balance demon suddenly stood rigid still in the warehouse, as he heard the words from the Powers being spoken in his mind. After several moments, he said to his superiors, "Both of those broads are gonna bite the dust? Gotta say, not liking that part. What? No, I'm not arguing with you, just expressing an opinion. What else? WHAT? Oh, blessed Saint Leibowitz, I don't believe this. Hey, I know there's a reason why you decided the Key should be sent to the Barbie doll in the first place, but I'm telling you – it's gonna do both her and the little sister some serious damage if the parental unit dies like that. Anyway, anything else?"

"Halloween? What's that got to do with anything? Fine, I'll be there. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Understood, already! Yeah, you just wait and see. Over and out."

Whistler then quickly left the empty room, as the fluorescent red light faded away into nothingness.

***

**Ethan's Costume Shoppe, Los Angeles, California**

**October 29****th****, 2000**

Deep within the Beverly Center shopping mall near Wilshire Boulevard, Ethan looked around at his newly opened establishment and smiled.

( _This is exactly the sort of thing that'll get Ripper back in the mood for some good old fashioned fun and excitement, I'd reckon, _) the chaos worshipper thought to himself, hoping that Giles would return to town before the festivities two days from now. ( _After all, turning everyone into their Halloween costumes for the night? Don't like blowing my own trumpet too much, but it's sheer genius. The very embodiment of 'be careful what you wish for'!_ )

Rayne knew that he and his partner would have to get out of town once the stunt was underway, though. There were too many major players within the City of Angels, most especially Wolfram & Hart, who most likely wouldn't appreciate his work. ( _Oh well, never mind. It was starting to get damned boring around here, anyhow._ )

Just then the door jingled, and in walked Cordelia and Xander.

The relationship between these two was a complicated one these days, to be perfectly honest. Cordelia had changed from the tactless annoyance she'd once been; the conceited, bitchy side of her personality had started to be smoothed away to show the extraordinary young woman lurking underneath.

Xander had certainly noticed this change in his female acquaintance, but he wasn't sure if it was worthwhile pursuing the idea of getting to know her more – intimately. There was the fact that Xander didn't think Wesley and Angel would approve of the idea of him and Cordelia getting together that way. Not that he personally gave a damn about their opinions, of course, but at the same time Harris didn't want to put Miss Chase in a position where she'd have to make a choice between him and her friends. Because he would come out the loser in that contest, the cynical young man had absolutely no doubts about it.

"I can't believe you're actually making me do this," Cordelia tried not to whine. "Xander, do you have no respect for me as a person?"

"Cordelia, you lost that bet we had going fair and square," Xander reminded her, talking about clothes and how the brunette had boasted she could make any outfit look good if she was wearing it. "And you swore to me that if you lost you would dress up in whatever Halloween costume I chose for you, remember?"

"Yes, I remember," Miss Chase said testily. "But I promise, if you force me to wear a Playboy bunny outfit or anything like that I will make the rest of your short and miserable life a living hell!"

Xander involuntarily grinned at her for a moment. ( _Whoo_ _boy, that's almost tempting enough to actually be worth it!_ ) "All right, Cor, I tell you what. I'll let you surprise me, okay? But whatever your costume is, it's got to be something you know I'll like. And," Harris raced on even as Miss Chase opened her mouth to thank him, "it has to have a sci-fi theme to it as well, understand? Someone you'd never dress up as under normal circumstances, and something that's instantly recognizable too."

Cordelia's features melted into a scowl. "Thanks a lot!" she huffed at him in annoyance.

"Come on, you still want to be an actress don't you? That means you gotta be prepared to play roles you don't actually like, until you're an 'international superstar'," Xander said with a slightly mocking tone. "So just think of this as an opportunity for you to make some progress in your Hollywood career, or whatever."

"Yeah, right, I'm sure," the female teen complained, already starting to look for a costume.

Xander just smirked and checked out her extremely voluptuous ass, before he started looking for his own costume. He didn't have much money; in fact, ever since Zeph had fired him over five months ago, things had been pretty tight financially. Luckily, Angel Investigations had found a new home in the long-abandoned Hyperion Hotel ever since the summer was over, and after getting evicted for failing to pay his rent on time, Xander had moved into the place.

There was plenty of room for both him and the ensouled vampire, and by that point, the concept of 'beggars can't be choosers' had certainly applied in Xander's mind.

"Can I be of assistance, young man?" a cultured British voice asked as the former Sunnydale boy quickly looked up.

"Yeah, I'm looking for something that's, uh, cheap and simple. Don't have much money on me, I'm afraid," Harris confessed to Ethan.

"I see. Well, perhaps you'd care to step over here," Rayne guided his customer to the discount bin. "If there's anything in there which catches your fancy, perhaps?"

For a moment Xander wondered if this guy was going to try to fleece him with some third-rate junk that he had laying around, but then Harris saw some things he could afford and the male teen got an idea for a rather novel Halloween costume. "I'll take this stuff."

Ethan viewed the brown wig and the facial putty with momentary surprise, but then shrugged and happily sold Xander the items in question. ( _Wonder how this'll end up a few nights from now_? )

***

**The Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles, California**

**October 31****st****, 2000**

Angel was busy sharpening one of his swords when his enhanced hearing caught the sound of a car coming to a halt outside, and he correctly assumed that Cordelia had arrived at the hotel.

In this world, he had never known the Queen C who had ruled Hemery High School with an iron fist until her family had gone broke during senior year. Something which had happened thanks to Mr. Chase horsing around with his tax returns ever since Sunnydale had collapsed into the earth. Angel had first met the down-on-her-luck and about-to-become-dead Cordelia at the residence of the soulless vampire named Russell Winters, whilst he and his first seer Doyle were on a mission to help the helpless.

The half-Brachen demon had been the one to convince Angel to give Miss Chase a job as a secretary after Winters had been tossed out into the sunlight and all the explanations had been concluded. Unfortunately, Doyle had later died for the cause, Cordelia had taken his place and the rest had been history – until Xander Harris had come along.

Angel frowned as he thought of the newest human to peripherally enter his un-life. That boy was such a walking contradiction, at least to his way of thinking. Harris had plenty of street smarts and was gifted with his hands – and yet he was unable or unwilling to pursue even a basic education to actualise his potential, or whatever they called it nowadays. He was also someone who despised vampires with a passion, yet nonetheless was pragmatic enough to be able to live under the same roof as one until he could afford his own place again.

All that didn't really matter, though. What did matter was that the human could and would stake Angelus without a moment's hesitation, unlike Cordelia or Wesley, so Angel tolerated Xander's presence as a safety measure for his friends, if nothing else. His evil alter ego was never buried too far below the surface, after all.

At that moment, Cordelia walked in through the front doors into the lobby. Angel just glanced at her, and then did a classic double-take as he noticed the Halloween costume she was wearing. ( _What the-?_ )

The black, thigh-hugging stockings, the red mini-dress and the black boots were one thing. But what really caught Angel's attention was the familiar insignia on Cordelia's chest. Well, that and the Vulcan ears she had on.

"Cordelia?" Angel asked, taking in the original series Starfleet uniform. It was enough to bring back lots of memories of the 1960's, some of which were actually pleasant ones. "Why are you wearing – that?"

"Didn't that loser tell you? I lost a bet to Xander recently, and this is the result," Cordy grumbled. "Hey, this outfit doesn't make my ass look fat, does it?"

"No, it looks fine," the Champion said uncertainly as Miss Chase inspected herself yet again.

"Well, good. But y'know, this is SO unfair! 'It has to have a sci-fi theme to it', he says. 'Something you'd never wear under normal circumstances', he says. Well, if this doesn't qualify then I don't know what the heck will," Cordelia muttered blackly. "And I swear to you, Angel, if Xander was putting me on about secretly being a Star Trek fan? I will gut him like a fish, and feed the remains to a pack of starving dogs!"

"Oh, so that's why you chose the outfit," Angel finally said in realization.

"Exactly!" the young woman exclaimed. "So, where's your costume for tonight?"

Angel stared at her for a moment, before remembering that during this time last year, the vision girl hadn't been so involved in what he did after hours. "Vampires don't wear Halloween costumes, Cordy. On account of we all stay indoors, it's our traditional time of the year to take a night off and avoid the outside world."

"Why? I mean, do you guys hate how commercial Halloween's become or something?" Cordelia looked confused, before shaking her head. "No, never mind, I don't care. All I want to know right now is, where's Xander and Wesley?"

"Uh, Wes isn't here. He's in Sun Valley somewhere; some woman called earlier on and asked him to join her there. He said to say, uh, sorry, but this was an opportunity too good to pass up," Angel replied dismissively.

"You mean, he's gone out on a last-minute date? And you're staying here tonight – oh my God, that means I'm gonna be all alone with Xander at the party!!" Miss Chase shouted, very upset about the Englishman's perceived betrayal. "I mean who else is gonna talk to me while I'm wearing this stupid costume, I ask you? Nobody, that's who. Oh, I'm gonna have to kill Wesley for this..."

Angel adopted his traditional defence against his seer's temper, he tried to look busy and started sharpening his sword again. However, the vamp couldn't help noticing Cordelia's tirade abruptly die in her throat as she saw Harris come down the stairs in his own Halloween costume.

"Greetings," Xander deliberately made his voice sound as rough and gravelly as possible. "Or maybe I should say, live long and prosper," the young man added with a chuckle as he gave the seer a Vulcan salute whilst admiring her classic Starfleet outfit.

"You, you..." Cordelia finally stammered. "You dork, what the HELL are you dressed up as?"

Xander gestured to himself, indicating his brown coat and pants, brown shoes, brown wig and deformed, incomplete-looking face. "You don't recognize me? Oh yes, of course, I was long after your time. Permit me to introduce myself, then. I am Odo of the Federation space station Deep Space Nine, at your service."

***

**Ethan's Costume Shoppe, Los Angeles, California**

**Not long afterwards**

Ethan, who had become too impatient for Giles to show up any longer, decided to go ahead and do the chaos spell without him. Uttering the Latin words, Rayne felt a bolt of power pass through him. The Roman god named Janus subsequently empowered the mage's attempt to transform everyone who had bought costumes from his shop into whatever they had dressed up as.

It was something Ethan had been thinking about doing for three years now, but had never had the opportunity to do before tonight.

"Showtime."

TBC...


	5. Hard Landing

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Not much else to say except thanks, everyone, for the reviews and feedback, and please keep them coming. I hope you enjoy the latest chapter of the story, Halloween with an Angel twist! And by the way, a virtual cookie to anyone who can figure out who Whistler was talking about that's at risk of dying.

***

**Part Five: Hard Landing**

**Abandoned warehouse, Cleveland, Ohio**

**October 31****st****, 2000**

Drusilla hummed to herself softly as she strolled around the lair which she and Spike currently called home. In the decades that had passed ever since she had had her vision of the future and killed Randall within that small East End flat, physically she appeared unchanged; but mentally, the nutty female vampire was now worse than ever.

( _It's such a shame Grandmother never came back,_ ) Dru thought idly to herself, her addled brain somehow knowing what might have been right now under different circumstances. ( _Oh well, at least she and Great-grandfather are happy together. Poor Daddy though. Oh! What fun we might have had with the Angel-beast!_ )

"Dru? DRU!" Spike's voice cut through Drusilla's thoughts. "Where are ya, ducks?"

"Oh, my sweet Spoike. Do you love me?" the undead woman asked with a sad pout, as he favorite childe came into the room.

"Eyeballs to entrails, my sweet. Now what are you doin' in 'ere?" William asked in concern. Try as he might, he had never quite been able to get Buffy's sneering voice out of his head taunting him about Drusilla's unfaithfulness ever since that night at the dance club.

"Miss Edith wanted to talk. And I miss my leeches," was the nonsensical reply.

Spike shook his head. It was conversations like this when he honestly preferred a good fight with the Slayer rather than try to make sense out of his sire's ramblings. "Come on, princess, talk to me. Have you had a vision lately?"

"Daddy isn't gonna be there, he's not gonna see it. But everything'll be different tonight: the queen of cups shall be the Sleeping Beauty, and her white knight will become the Chameleon Crusader," Dru chanted, as the moon and the stars whispered their secrets to her. "Oh! The man in the hat, I don't like 'im at all! He shouldn't be there in the City o' Angels. He's a very naughty boy, Spoike. He's so naughty that I wanna wear his ribcage as a hat." For no reason that Spike could understand, Drusilla then burst out laughing and giggling.

William the Bloody just shook his head again, and decided to simply forget that he'd ever asked his girlfriend anything. Even though he still wanted to kill Angel with every fibre of his being, Spike knew that tonight wasn't the night to drop everything and go to Los Angeles do it.

Nothing ever happened on Halloween, after all.

***

**Los Angeles, California**

**The same time**

It happened in a millisecond, in many places all over the city. Everyone who had bought a Halloween costume from Ethan literally became who or what they'd dressed up as.

It instantly caused alarm bells to start ringing within the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart, as the mystics detected the magical disturbance and informed their superiors that a chaos spell had just been performed. An emergency meeting was thus quickly set up to decide what to do about it. In the end, the CEO ordered Lindsey and the Special Projects department to handle it, and he told the liaison to the Senior Partners to inform them that his branch of the firm would terminate the mage who had done this with extreme prejudice.

It was too late for that in the case of Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase, though. For them, the timing of the spell couldn't possibly have been worse. Primarily, because the former cheerleader was driving her car whilst bickering with her male companion, and the brunette abruptly becoming a Vulcan woman who had no idea what was going on was a pure recipe for disaster.

The chaos magicks did their job perfectly as the pointed ears became real, and the skin took on a subtle greenish hue thanks to the alien woman's copper-based blood. An inner eyelid or nictitating membrane, which protected her vision from bright lights, also manifested itself. And last but not least, the brain cortex was modified in order to allow the Vulcan female to use psionic techniques for "synaptic pattern displacement", or mind-melding as it was more commonly known.

Oddly, however, even though Ethan's spell had provided all of the background knowledge necessary for the artificial persona to exist, the personal knowledge was missing in action because Cordelia hadn't dressed up with any particular Star Trek character in mind. All that the persona knew was that she was named T'Cor, and that she served as a Starfleet officer aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 during the 23rd century.

At least, that was all she knew before Cordelia's car crashed into the vehicle right in front of them, and the Vulcan was knocked unconscious from the impact of the steering wheel onto her head.

A nasty cut took place above her left eye, the green blood dripping down and staining T'Cor's red Starfleet uniform. Automatically, her body entered into _us'tar-ja_, the Vulcan healing trance. Thus, it was lucky that the former Xander Harris, now the changeling known as Odo, was there to grab the steering wheel and take charge of the situation.

Had anyone else been there to see it, two seconds previously Xander's transformation into his Halloween costume would have been a lot more note-worthy than Cordelia's. As the morphogenic matrix encapsulated the human body, Xander's biomolecular structure shifted into a changeling's natural state: an orange, gelatinous liquid native to the Gamma Quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy.

In other words, a sentient shape-changing creature which could survive in the vacuum of space, which was immune to most projectile and energy weapons, which had no sense of smell, and which could theoretically live for centuries, if not forever.

A moment later, Odo's typical humanoid face and form reasserted themselves, with no trace of Xander visible on the surface. Despite their car hitting the vehicle in front of them, the former Deep Space Nine security chief reacted perfectly: he instantly hit the brake and brought the Cordy-mobile to a halt.

( _What's going on here?_ ) Odo asked himself as the confusion took over. As far as he was concerned Odo had just joined his people on the new homeworld of the changelings, a.k.a. the Founders of the Dominion, in order to teach them the error of their ways in waging war on the Alpha Quadrant of the galaxy. Also, he had just bidden the love of his life, the Bajoran woman named Colonel Kira Nerys, a necessary but painful farewell – and as far as Odo knew, it was currently stardate 52861.3, or the year 2375.

( _Then again, I might be wrong about that,_ ) the shape-changing alien thought to himself, looking around and taking in his surroundings. In his memories, Odo had travelled back in time more than once over the last seven years, and he recognized this place as a city of Earth around the late 20th or early 21st century. ( _Not again. Quark! If this is all your doing somehow, I will lock you up and throw away the key! _)

Odo quickly discarded this hypothesis regarding his greedy Ferengi acquaintance, though, upon a closer examination of his unconscious companion. T'Cor's Starfleet uniform was at least eighty years out of date, and she had no modern weaponry or equipment that he could see. For all Odo knew, her Universal Translator might not even be up to the task of letting him be able to communicate with her.

Most likely, temporal chaos of some sort was going on around here. Which would not be good for business from a Ferengi's point of view.

"Hey, you crazy sons of bitches!" Odo looked up to see a very irate driver in front of Cordelia's car, shouting at him and the injured Vulcan. "What's the matter with you? Look what you did to my van!" The motorist gestured to his damaged fender. "You see this? Who's gonna pay for this? 'Cause it's not gonna be me, that's for sure!"

When no reply was forthcoming, the man angrily grabbed a big lug wrench and headed toward the other car. "Come on, either you own up to it or I'll call the cops. And you damn well better have insurance!"

At that moment, Odo made a decision. He scrambled out of the car, and dragged the unconscious T'Cor out of the driver's side door. The other driver just kept advancing with the lug wrench, now slightly concerned as he saw the male passenger in the Halloween costume yank the woman – probably his girlfriend – out of the motor vehicle.

To be honest, the van owner had thought he was prepared for just about anything. A physical fight, a confrontation with someone completely strung out on dope, or maybe even a drunken punk teenager who had been heading to Lovers Lane with his girl in order to get laid. He could have coped equally well with being attacked, or being asked to take the injured woman to a hospital.

What he couldn't cope with was seeing Odo morph into his liquid form and then into a Vorian pterodactyl before flying away with the Vulcan female, in accordance with the Temporal Prime Directive, in order not to contaminate the timeline any more than it had already had been – that is, had Odo and T'Cor truly been what they thought they were.

( _Oh, shit,_ ) the man thought to himself, dropping the lug wrench in dismay and glancing at Cordelia's abandoned car after the pterodactyl vanished behind a nearby building. ( _Did I just see – what I just saw? No. No way!_ ) Once he decided that nobody was EVER going to believe this, the guy figured he ought to just keep his mouth shut about the whole thing. One, in order not to be labelled as a fruitcake by the cops and two, not to risk losing his job after the rumours hit his workplace.

( _What the hell, it's only a minor little fender-bender. I can afford to have it taken care of by myself. 'Cause better that, than ever telling anyone what just happened here tonight_! )

***

**Glory's townhouse, Cleveland, Ohio**

**The same time**

Tonight on All Hallow's Eve, Ben was nowhere in sight. He had been losing the battle against the bane of his existence more and more often lately. And as if to underscore this fact, Glory was currently taking a bubble bath.

Even though she wasn't human, and the nude female body within the bathtub was hardly the hellgod's true form, she had still insisted on human proprieties this evening. That was why three of her worshippers were kneeling beside the tub with blindfolds over their eyes. One held a tray with a wine glass on it, one held a loofah and the other a large box of chocolate.

Glory released a happy sigh. "Lot of suck-y things in this dimension – but bubble baths? Not one of 'em. Know what I mean?"

The minions were quick to agree with anything she said of course, like the good little yes-men they were. Jinx almost literally leaped at the chance to say, "I am in thunderous agreement, oh glittering, glistening Glorificus."

Glory barely even deigned to glance at him, as she grabbed a piece of chocolate and began to devour it. "I wasn't talking to you."

Murk looked confused underneath the blindfold. "Uh, begging your pardon, and begging in general, but – were you talking to me?"

Glory instantly made a face. "Eww. Yeah, right. Like any of you have ever bathed, anyway!"

Dreg replied, "Oh, but we do, your Scrumptiousness. We bathe in your splendiferous radiance, your aromatic-"

The demonic god quickly interrupted, "How about you all shut up and just listen to me, you disgusting little fools?" All three instantly bowed their heads as she went on, "Okay. Now, what I think we have here is a failure for all of you to do your frickin' jobs, pardon my French. Loofah!"

Murk handed it to her as Glory went on, "It's been over two months since those damned monks hid my Key. And I've been on one side of this lousy planet to the other looking for it, but so far all you've uncovered for me is a big fat nothing!" She shoved the loofah back into Murk's hand after she was done with it, "Mimosa!"

Dreg held out the tray and Glory took the glass. "Mmm – vitamins. Doesn't even compare to a good brain-suck, of course, but not bad in its own way." She then threw the wine glass away after finishing off her drink, and it smashed to pieces against the wall. "Anyway, getting back on topic. I think all of you had better start wracking your little minion brains, and find out where my Key might actually be. Or else I'll tear all of you apart, limb from limb."

"We have tried to find out where the Key has been hidden, your Supreme Excellentness. But it has been difficult to locate it without any clue as to what its physical form actually is. It could be a log, or a park bench, or..." Jinx said hesitantly.

"I already told you, I don't want to hear your frickin' excuses!!" Glory screamed in fury, standing up in the bath. "Now get outta my sight, and FIND MY KEY!!"

Luckily, the minions knew better than to tell Glory that since tonight was Halloween, the odds of success were slim to none. And since their eyes were covered by the blindfolds, neither were they distracted by the incredible beauty of that naked, wet, and extremely desirable female body. Jinx, Dreg and Murk just got out of the room as fast as they could, grateful that their deity had seen fit to let them live another night.

***

**Alley south of Caritas, Los Angeles, California**

**A few moments later**

The Vorian pterodactyl came in for a landing, gently depositing the unconscious Vulcan onto the ground, as the changeling turned back into orange liquid for a moment before resuming humanoid shape. Odo briefly looked around the alley to double-check that they were alone, before examining his fellow extraterrestrial more closely.

T'Cor looked to him to be a fairly normal member of the caucasoid race of the Vulcan species. Her head was injured, but it didn't look life-threatening; the bleeding had already stopped by this point. Plus if Odo knew anything about Vulcan physiology, the healing trance should be able to take care of any internal injuries. But that begged the question, what was he going to do with her once the woman woke up?

( _That's all I need, another person to have to hide from just in order to preserve the timeline. Damn it, what's going on? How did we get here, wherever 'here' actually is_? )

"Well, now, welcome to LA – y'know, I'm honestly not sure what to call you here?"

Odo whirled around in surprise, as he'd been certain there was no one behind him a few moments ago and he would have heard any solid life-form approaching. "Who are you?"

"Name's Whistler," the balance demon told him. "And like I said, I don't know what to call you. I mean, the name you think you've been using for the last few decades, Odo? It sounds too much like someone saying 'oh no' with a bad head cold to me."

The changeling instantly shifted his stance, both physically and mentally. Obviously, the Temporal Prime Directive did not apply if this person already knew who he was. "I repeat, who are you? And do you know how the Vulcan and I-" he gestured to the possessed form of Cordelia on the ground, "-came to be here?"

"Oh yeah, I know how you two came to be here. But like I've said before, you're not gonna like the answer once I tell it to you."

Odo frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your name? It's short for odo'ital, if I remember right. Loosely translated from the native lingo of those clowns calling themselves Cardassians, that word means 'nothing'. Kinda ironic, really! 'Cause here in this world, that's what you and the pointy-eared babe down there ultimately are. Nothing," Whistler told the shape-changing alien with brutal honesty.

"I no longer subscribe to that point of view," Odo replied icily. "For better or worse, I am a changeling. One of the hundred sent out by my people to explore the galaxy. I am not, and never have been, 'nothing'."

"That's what you think." Whistler tossed him a DVD which had the title, 'New Frontiers: The Story of Deep Space Nine'. "Look familiar?"

Odo felt a human chill pass through him as he examined the primitive data disc, and saw many things he recognized on the front and back cover. "What is this?"

"All right, for the popular entertainment challenged around here? You're not real, Mr. Nothing," Whistler told him bluntly. "Neither is Little Miss Logic asleep down there. Bottom line? You're both just a couple of fictional characters from a couple of fictional TV shows that used to air on CBS and NBC," the balance demon added. "It's Halloween, some guy dressed up as you tonight; and thanks to a bit of magic performed by an asswipe who shall currently remain nameless, the kid actually BECAME you. Ditto with the hot-a-rama who was in that car you suddenly found yourself in, just a few minutes ago."

"I don't know how you know what you know about me, or even what you want yet. But one thing I DO know, and that is that magic does not exist," Odo replied forcefully, refusing to believe he'd been told.

"Not in your reality, yeah. But here? It sure as hell does." Whistler then tried a new tack, "Tell you what, why don't you try linking with the human kid whose body you're possessing right now? I betcha he can convince you of the truth!"

Odo looked confused for a moment. He knew that in order to link with other changelings he simply had to revert to his native state and the liquids would seamlessly mix together, blending their individual minds into one; which, on the homeworld, made up the collective consciousness known as the Great Link. However, to link with a solid was simply not possible...

Nonetheless, Odo did as suggested and resumed his default gelatinous form, as he searched for something or someone to link with. There was nothing at first, but slowly the shape-shifter began to detect a dim voice, somewhere in the back of his mind...

"Harris? Can you hear me? Talk to me if you can!" Whistler's voice barked, distracting Odo from his task for a moment.

Undaunted, the former constable subsequently reached out with all his mental strength – and finally made contact with the consciousness of Alexander Lavelle Harris, using a variant of the Trill _zhian'tara_ rite he had once taken part in aboard Deep Space Nine.

Odo winced at hearing the human's voice screaming at him to get out of the body they were currently sharing. But drawing on reserves of strength he didn't know he had, the alien ordered his host to calm down and explain everything to him as simply as possible. Which Xander eventually did.

"So. I take it you're convinced now?" Whistler asked the changeling, when he finally returned to his humanoid form.

Odo didn't reply, he just appeared to concentrate and then morphed into a perfect replica of Xander's body. The shape-changer subsequently scowled; it wasn't at all pleasant learning how he was, indeed, just a fictional character somehow brought to life tonight. "Yes. And I also know exactly who you are now."

The balance demon instinctively took a step back; he knew who he was still dealing with despite appearances. "Hey, look. I don't know what the kid's told you-"

"Thank you for your suggestion that I should link with Mr. Harris," Odo said using Xander's mouth, cutting him off. "Our meeting of minds has provided me with some interesting information; in fact, I now know all that he knows, and likewise he knows what I know. What YOU should know is that whilst in no sense naïve, that boy is, however, inexperienced in certain matters; but I am not. That is how I can tell that you are a manipulator, and not to be trusted," the former head of security barked out.

Whistler exhaled in annoyance. "I work for the Powers, pal. My job is to try to maintain the balance between good and evil in this world, pure and simple."

"No matter who needs to get sacrificed along the way in order for that to happen, no doubt," Odo said cuttingly, still using Xander's face. "Somehow, I get the feeling that you'd be singing a very different tune if you suddenly found yourself considered an expendable pawn by your so-called Powers That Be."

"Whatever," Whistler said, trying to quell an icy stab of fear. "Look, grab the girl and come with me, I figure we can take her to-"

"-Lorne's karaoke bar. Yes, I know," Odo interrupted as he effortlessly lifted up the unconscious T'Cor in his arms. "Lead the way, if you insist on coming along."

Whistler looked surprised for a moment, but then just shrugged and did as he was commanded. Soon enough, they marched down the stairs and banged on the door to be let in.

"We're closed, it's Halloween!" Lorne's muffled voice came from the other side.

Odo handed off Cordelia's body to Whistler, and then melted into his more versatile liquid state. He slipped under the door, instinctively resumed his normal humanoid body, undid the locks, opened the door and effortlessly hauled the others inside.

"Hey, this is trespassing! What do you think you're..." Lorne abruptly trailed off as he got a look at Odo's face. A closet Star Trek fan just like Xander, the Host said in amazement, "Oh sweet lords of Tarkna, are you-?"

"Yes," Odo said in an emotionless tone of voice before he concentrated and morphed into Xander again, taking T'Cor from Whistler. "I'm told this place is a sanctuary of sorts, so I came here to request temporary refuge for my Vulcan companion. As you can see, she's injured and might require some sort of medical attention. I don't suppose you know anyone who can assist her in any way?"

Lorne just stared at the being speaking to him in disbelief. He had recognized Xander and Cordelia immediately from the numerous times they, along with Wesley and Angel, had frequented his club over the last two months. But he could tell that it definitely wasn't Xander who was speaking to him right now. This guy was a lot more – scary. ( _And whoo boy, ain't that the truth!_ )

In reply to the question, the anagogic demon stammered, "Uh, maybe. Girls, could you come have a look at her?"

The Transuding Furies, who had come here tonight to modify and strengthen the anti-demon violence ward they'd placed upon the club, glided forward. They were the same women who had sealed the California Hellmouth and inadvertently destroyed Sunnydale, but they still looked exactly the same as they had thirteen years ago. They were not immortal, but like their protégés in Cleveland – like Odo and the alien woman possessing Cordelia, for that matter – barring death by violence, they had the ability to live for centuries without their bodies turning into decrepit wrecks.

"This one.."

"...is special..."

"...for many different reasons," the three Furies chorused one after the other, after examining the female Vulcan.

"What? What exactly do you mean by that?" Odo demanded.

"Without the ability to heal..."

"...the damage done to her brain..."

"...the visions would eventually kill her. However..."

"However?" Odo prompted the Furies, looking concerned. He could hear Xander's voice and feel his emotions through their link, and the huge panic attack the boy was currently having was a very unwelcome distraction to him.

"All the damage to her mind is currently being healed, by that which currently possesses her. Thus, Angel's seer will wake up completely healthy, as long as the chaos spell remains in place long enough for that to happen," the Asian Fury explained.

Odo could feel the combination of fear and joy as Xander learned exactly what the object of his affections had been hiding from him, and how she might be saved from an untimely death. ( _I don't understand it. Why haven't you simply told Miss Chase how your true feelings for her have changed lately?_ )

( _Lemme answer that question with one of my own, pal. Why didn't YOU ever tell Colonel Kira how you really felt about her? And don't try to hide behind the excuse of all the other boyfriends she had in her life!_ ) Harris shot back in annoyance.

( _Touché,_ ) Odo replied wryly. ( _But I think you'd be wise to take my advice and tell the woman the truth; if not now, then at least one day. From what I can see of Miss Chase in your memories, she might just surprise you – exactly the way Nerys surprised me._ )

( _I_ _don't think so, Odo. And if you know everything I've been through in my life, just like I know everything you've been through in yours, I'm sure you can understand why,_ ) Xander told him.

( _Indeed,_ ) the shape-changer replied. ( _But if you refuse to even take a chance that she may reciprocate your feelings, you'll never know the happiness that Nerys and I shared – even if only for that short amount of time._ )

Xander was saved from having to reply to that by Lorne tapping Odo on the shoulder. "So what's the plan, big guy? You're gonna just sit tight here and hope for the best, or what?"

Odo, still using Xander's body, turned slowly to face him. Then he whirled around towards Whistler, who had just been standing around in the background up until now. The changeling narrowed his eyes and said suspiciously, "Something's just occurred to me – why are you here? I mean, why did you actually seek out both myself and Miss Chase? It wasn't just the situation with the possession, I'm sure; I could have coped with that alone, somehow. There has to something else – your kind always has an ulterior motive. So start talking!"

Whistler looked caught for a moment. He was tempted to tell the alien about his conversation with the Powers That Be in that warehouse, and his concerns about Cordelia's effect on Angel. But all he said was, "Look, the vision girl here? The Powers owed her one, on account of she was used and abused in their name for quite a while, so all this is sorta – restitution on their part, so to speak. Hopefully, she'll make a complete recovery-"

"And what if she doesn't?" Odo interrupted forcefully. "Because there are no certainties, are there? You and yours have at least made an attempt to save Miss Chase's life, most likely in order to salve your conscience about the matter – but you don't actually care if she lives or dies, do you? Typical," he sneered at the Powers' messenger.

Ignoring the balance demon's expression of self-righteous outrage, the changeling then turned to the Host, "And to answer your question, I'm leaving. That's why I require a communications device, a cell phone I believe you call it. Please," Odo added almost as an afterthought at Xander's prodding.

Lorne nodded. He went behind the bar and gave Odo his personal cell after switching it on. "Just press this button when you hear it ring," the Host of Caritas said as he handed it over. "I'll call you the moment our sleeping princess wakes up, okay?"

"Thank you. And Xander says to say thank you, as well," Odo replied, slipping the phone into a jacket pocket.

Whistler noticed the Furies had formed a circle around Cordelia. He figured they were about to attempt to do some sort of mojo after seeing all three join hands and close their eyes, and thanks to his recent conversation with the Powers he was able to accurately guess what it was too. He kept his mouth shut about it, though: orders from his bosses. ( _No way I'M gonna end up some sort of sacrificial pawn._ )

"What exactly are you planning to do?" Whistler simply asked Odo.

"Unlike yourself, I have a personal interest in this matter," the changeling said roughly. "That's why I intend to make sure the – spell – is maintained for as long as is necessary, by finding the person who initiated it and persuading him to cooperate."

"Yeah, about that. What makes you think that you and the cutie-pie here were the only ones affected by the chaos spell?" Whistler asked him. "I mean, think about it. That whole ulterior motive thing? You were right; when I came to you, it wasn't just about helping someone in need. It was because the Powers want you to be their trouble-shooter out there tonight. See, in order to help our girl out here we've ended up with all sorts of people like the Joker and Magneto and Lex Luthor running around on the streets, and someone needs to take care of 'em. Otherwise, where's the justice gonna be for all their victims?"

Odo scowled, but in the face of Xander's panicked babbling, he knew that the balance demon had a point. In the days when he'd had no friends, no past and no fixed form, the changeling's only loyalty had been to the one constant in his life: his desire for justice. And by now, Odo had learned how the human axiom was totally incorrect – that justice was not 'blind' in any sense of the word. ( _Laws_ _change depending on who's making them, but justice is justice..._ )

"Very well," Odo finally growled. "I will endeavour to preserve the lives of the innocent as my priority. But we WILL be having a discussion later on, regarding your definition of what Xander calls 'collateral damage'." Then Odo looked like he'd just had an epiphany. "Wait. This is the real reason why you saved Xander's life that night when you two first met, isn't it? Why your Powers That Be went to all the trouble of arranging to save a human which they could and otherwise would have let die. Hmmm. Yes, as I said before – manipulators," the alien sent Whistler a look of utter contempt.

Without another word, the shape-shifter morphed into the form of a Cardassian vole, and the little spoon-headed critter quickly raced out the front door of the karaoke bar as Whistler looked thunderstruck at the changeling's most-likely-correct hypothesis.

***

**Outside Ethan's Costume Shoppe, Los Angeles, California**

**November 1****st****, 2000**

It had been one hell of a night, as 'Ripper' Giles headed for his partner's business address and the morning sun continued to rise over the City of Angels.

Even though Giles didn't know it, Odo had been kept very busy until the chaos spell was over and the changeling had abruptly vanished into oblivion. It hadn't been easy for the one-time security chief to capture and restrain all of Ethan's victims safely without resorting to lethal force, but with Xander to provide insight into each costume persona's strengths and weaknesses, he had managed to do so. The two had made a good team, and had carried out their duty to the best of their ability.

Unfortunately, Xander was now in the hospital, because he had fallen from a not-insignificant height after the spell had ended and then crash-landed onto the ground. Odo had been in the form of a Tarkalean condor, when at precisely the wrong moment the magicks had been terminated and gravity had become a serious issue for the powerless human. Luckily, he hadn't been so high that the fall had killed or permanently crippled him, but it had been high enough for the person who'd found Harris to call 911 immediately.

As said, though, Giles knew nothing about all this. He had spent an unplanned but delightful night of debauchery and pleasure at Madam Dorion's brothel in Beverly Hills, and was only now hearing what had transpired in Los Angeles the previous evening. Even though the authorities were putting all the violence and supernatural activity down to pranks and Halloween mischief, 'Ripper' knew better – and he also knew who was most likely to blame for it all.

( _Ethan, what have you done?_ ) Giles asked himself for maybe the hundredth time this morning, as he headed for the front door of the shop. ( _Damn it, you promised to cut it out with this sort of thing! When I get my hands on you..._ )

But as soon as Giles entered the shop, he froze in horror. Ethan Rayne's body had been torn to pieces, and the scattered bloody remains were waiting in there for him to find. There was also a note, courtesy of Wolfram & Hart, waiting to be found.

THERE WAS A MINOR PROBLEM LAST NIGHT, AS WELL AS A LESSON TO BE TAUGHT. THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN CORRECTED, AND THE LESSON HAS HOPEFULLY BEEN LEARNED.

Once Giles read the words, he quickly decided it was time to haul up stakes and get the hell out of town. ( _Sorry, Ethan, but I'm gonna have to vamoose in order not to join you down there. I warned you time and time again not to piss off those bastards, you berk! Bloody hell, but it was only a matter of time 'til you finally bit off more than you could chew, I suppose. So au revoir, mate, and good luck in giving Satan an ulcer before we finally meet up again..._ )

The British man put the note in his pocket, wiped his fingerprints off the door handle and hastily exited the costume shop, never to return.

TBC...


	6. Confessions

See Part One for disclaimer and details. My thanks to all those who have made my life brighter and happier with all their kind and flattering words in their reviews and feedback! Okay, now this chapter sets up some important things for later on. And don't forget to hit that big, shiny, inviting review button when you're done! I freely confess, I am a feedback junkie and I need my fix. Say la vie.

***

**Part Six: Confessions**

**Watchers Council Headquarters, London, England**

**November 1****st****, 2000**

Quentin Travers was not in a good mood, and hadn't been ever since that meeting where the Council had decided to use Giles and Buffy for their own ends, instead of just exterminating them like he wanted to happen.

If it had been anyone else, Travers could and probably would have gone along with Roger's plan, and maybe even proposed it himself. One didn't rise to being the second-in-command of the Council by being stupid, after all. But unfortunately, Quentin's pride and ego simply wouldn't let him look at the situation objectively.

The decades of animosity between himself and Rupert Giles demanded nothing less than an unmarked shallow grave for that insufferable bastard, as far as Travers was concerned. Buffy, likewise, warranted a bullet in her brain for daring to defy the Council's authority, in his mind. ( _Oh yes, that blasted wench's time will come. One day, yes it will..._ )

"Excuse me, sir?" Quentin's aide named Nigel knocked and stuck his head through the door into the private office.

"Yes, what is it?" Travers replied, looking up.

"There's been an overnight development in America, in Los Angeles to be precise. I thought you'd want to be appraised of the situation straightaway, given how the local police have found Ethan Rayne's remains there."

That immediately caught the older Watcher's interest, and he beckoned his assistant to hand over the file. Nigel did so, and Quentin briefly scanned through its contents. An upraised eyebrow was the only visible reaction to the details regarding Ethan's gruesome death before Travers said to Nigel, "There's nothing about Rupert Giles in this."

"No sir," the aide agreed. "If they were together, what with the way the body was butchered – I'd say he almost certainly must have moved on by now."

"Most likely, yes." Travers contemplated this latest news. It meant that half of the vow made to Giles' father had now been fulfilled, even if Rayne hadn't died by Quentin's hand. ( _Never mind; he was never really that much of a priority, anyway. Rupert was always the more dangerous member of the pair. Now where would that ruddy blighter have disappeared off to...?_ )

"Sir? Shall I inform the rest of the Council about this? I know that Mr. Wyndham-Pryce has been badgering everyone lately for whatever news we can dig up on those two," Nigel interrupted Quentin's thoughts.

Travers was halfway tempted to tell him to keep it a secret just to annoy his Council colleague, but he was too much of a professional to do that. You didn't issue orders contrary to those of the leader of the organization, whenever it was possible for the minions to disobey them and land you in hot water afterwards. "Yes, of course. Liaise with Roger's assistant and see if you two can track down any hint of Rupert's location, and then report back to me at once."

As Nigel nodded and left the room, Travers picked up another report detailing the latest activities of Glory in Cleveland and re-read it with a sigh. ( _We really do need to figure out a way to annihilate that damned hellgod, once and for all._ )

***

**Drew Medical Centre, Los Angeles, California**

**Later that night**

Xander Harris was alone in his hospital room, and thinking about many things.

The previous evening had been quite the revelatory experience for him. And now that the possession was over, Xander still possessed roughly forty years' worth of Odo's personal memories, memories of things which had never happened outside the realm of television and DVDs; and yet which still felt like the real deal to the nineteen-year-old male. Because it was as if he had lived the changeling's life himself, the link had been a two-way street that had affected him right down to the depths of his being.

Xander could actually remember Captain Benjamin Sisko, and the crew of Deep Space Nine, as real individuals. Ditto for Kira Nerys and the other Bajorans, as well as Quark and all the patrons of the Ferengi's bar. Xander could also recall the Cardassians and the space station when it had been called Terok Nor, during the era when the planet Bajor and its people had been enslaved by an extremely brutal and sadistic alien regime. The young man could even call to mind those individuals from whom Odo had learned various espionage and assassination techniques – such as the use of poison, explosives and scrambling signals.

Plus, maybe it was the morphine talking, but being a mono-form human again now felt rather confining after experiencing all the freedoms which a changeling took for granted. But Xander wasn't about to complain. He had his body back, and would eventually regain his health as well. So, all things considered, maybe it was time to try being a glass half-full instead of half-empty type of guy.

"Hello, Xander."

Harris turned to the doorway of the tiny hospital room in surprise, as he saw Angel enter the premises. "Huh. Well, this is kinda unexpected. So what brings you here?"

"Phone call from the hospital, standard procedure on their part. They looked for someone to contact after you were admitted, and somehow they got the Hyperion's number." Angel strolled around, spying some expensive-looking flowers in the corner. "I see someone's got a well-wisher?"

Xander looked where the ensouled vampire was staring, and to Angel's surprise the young man snorted in disgust. "Go ahead, read the card."

Angel did so. "Hope you recover soon and deepest thanks on behalf of Lilah Morgan and – these are from Wolfram & Hart?!" he asked in astonishment.

Xander snorted again. "Remind me to piss on 'em later. Or when I can stand up on my own again, anyway," he said as he gestured to his two broken legs.

"Xander, why would those people send you a get-well card and gift? What happened to you last night?" Angel fixed his gaze on the mortal.

"Fell about ten, fifteen feet after I stopped being possessed by my Halloween costume around dawn," Harris said simply. "And I guess I got those because I helped clean up a mess that the bad guys would have otherwise had to fix themselves."

Angel had learned some things after receiving a very strange telephone call from the Host of Caritas earlier on. "I heard a little about that, but Lorne either didn't know much or he didn't want to go into details over the phone. I'd prefer to hear it direct from you, if you don't mind."

With another shrug, Xander obliged. Angel thus heard the whole fantastic story, and in the end he said with some concern, "So you were taken over by that, uh, changeling – and you're sure you're no longer possessed?"

"If I was, do you think I'd be flat on my back like this?" Xander again pointed to his broken legs. "This could have never happened to Odo. Well, apart from the time he was briefly a solid like me, but even then, I have my doubts about whether he'd have let himself almost get killed in a fall like that. You don't end up becoming the chief of security for Deep Space Nine by being an idiot, y'know."

"And you said that you can remember everything he knew..." Angel mused. "Good. Xander, I'd like to offer you a job. Officially, I mean; salary and all."

"Say WHAT?" Harris looked at the cursed vampire in shock. "You want me to work for you? More importantly, why would I wanna do that?"

"I run a private detective agency, remember?" Angel pointed out. "I could do with someone of your new skills. I'm not saying that you didn't contribute before, of course, but I'm thinking you can do a lot more now than just fix things and act as backup during a fight with the demons. Who better than you to help me, Wesley and Cordelia on our cases?"

The mention of Miss Chase caused a frown to appear on Xander's face. Ever since he and Odo had had their conversation about her in Caritas, the curvaceous brunette had never been far from Xander's thoughts. Even though he refused to contemplate whether he had actually wandered into L-word territory like Odo had accused him of doing, Harris could not deny that Cordy now meant a lot to him. "Almost forgot, I have to tell you-"

At that moment the door burst open and Cordelia came inside with the force of a hurricane, Lorne trailing behind her. He was in disguise with sunglasses and a genuine Frank Sinatra pork pie hat, but Miss Chase still had her Halloween costume on. Minus the pointed ears, of course.

"Oh my God, Xander, what happened to you?! Are you all right?" The young woman looked half-crazed with worry and concern, as she began to examine the plaster casts on Xander's lower limbs.

"Couple of broken legs, but I'll live," Xander told her simply. "Hey, Lorne. You're looking all Chairman of the Board tonight, huh?"

"Don't try to change the subject!" Cordelia snapped, even as Lorne opened his mouth to reply. "Now tell me everything, what happened last night? I mean I can remember being possessed for a moment, but the last thing I remember clearly was arguing with you in my car – oh my God, my car!!" Miss Chase suddenly yelped in concern.

"The police impounded it not long after you two crashed into that van. We can pick it up in the morning if you like," Angel soothed her concerns.

"Well, good-" Cordelia started to say.

"Cordy? How are you feeling after the whole possession thing?" Harris cut in with a bit too much concern, which made Angel frown. "And we need to talk, missy," Xander's tone abruptly got colder. "Why the hell didn't you tell anybody that those goddamn visions were killing you?!"

"What?!" Angel demanded, whirling to face Cordelia.

Cordy suddenly looked like a deer trapped within headlights. The Chase girl then reluctantly said, "It's not – it wasn't actually that bad-"

"Sweetie, I hate it to break this to you, but according to the Furies last night? Your brain wouldn't have lasted for too much longer, the way things were going," Lorne interrupted apologetically. "It's been a year – and you really should have said something before you ended up in danger of dropping dead on the street that way."

"All right, if that's the case, then we've got to find a way to transfer the visions to someone else. Effective immediately," Angel decided in a no-nonsense kind of voice.

"Hey! Don't I get a say in this?" Cordelia demanded, angry over how Angel had simply made the decision for her.

"If my opinion counts for anything, then the answer is hell, no!" Xander glared at her, his concern now evident to everyone in the room. "Damn it, Cordy, what's the matter with you? That so-called gift is something which you never should have gotten in the first place, and it's also something that's going to kill you if you don't get rid of it!"

"Well, I guess your argument's logical – God damn it!" Cordelia cursed as the unwelcome remnants of T'Cor surfaced for a moment.

"You do not need to worry about..."

"...her untimely death due to..."

"...the visions, at least not any longer," the three Furies chorused, as they too entered the tightly-packed room.

"Ladies," Angel said to them politely, as Xander swung his head around to look at the three magical women in surprise.

"Mmmm, Angel," the Furies said in unison, eyeing him appreciatively. The vampire was someone all three sisters had had sex with in the past, just like the long-dead Robson, in order for Angel to pay a debt to them.

Cordelia instantly knew what that look signified. "Oh my God, make me yak! Angel!!" she said in disgust. "All three of them? Ewww! Ewww! Ewww!"

"Huh? OH!" Xander finally got it as well. "Uh, never mind. Look, what did you girls mean by your comment just now?"

The Furies stared at Cordelia, who instantly felt uncomfortable. Unlike Xander, Miss Chase's Halloween experience was something she could easily ignore; basically because T'Cor had only possessed her for a very short time before her ending up in dreamland. Thus, Cordy found it relatively easy to suppress the alien memories, including all the knowledge of what it was like being a Vulcan. ( _Like I want to spend the rest of my life acting as if I was an emotionless zombie like her! And since dilithium doesn't exist in this world, it's not like I'm gonna be building any fancy-schmancy 23__rd__ century technology anytime soon either._ )

"The terms of the verbal contract were quite clear," the oldest Fury answered cryptically.

"Verbal contract?" Angel asked at once, looking at the two human teenagers.

"Last night, we were asked..."

"...to render her assistance..."

"...which we have done," the Furies replied in their usual sing-song way.

"Later on..."

"...the time will come..."

"...to settle the issue of payment."

"Yeah, see, it boils down like this," Lorne finally stepped up to explain. "After ending up in that car accident, our Vulcan friend found a lot of dying brain cells inside what she thought was her head, and so she tried to heal 'em all. She didn't succeed in getting the entire job done in time before the mojo ended, apparently; but that's not important. What IS important is that even though Cordelia's pretty much fine now, the next time the Powers sent a vision, it'd start up the whole cumulative damage thing all over again."

"Then what...?" Xander started to say, before the memories of last night in Caritas kicked in. He recalled seeing through Odo's eyes the circle the Furies had created, the closed eyes and joined hands. And unlike the changeling, HE had no problem believing in magic these days.

"You did some sorta spell, right?" Harris demanded at once. "What did you three do to Cordelia?"

Angel was now looking concerned too. "Yeah, what he said!"

Cordelia glared at them both, before shifting her gaze to Lorne. "Well?"

"I'm sorry if this is gonna upset you, sweetikins, but the sad fact is, once the spell was over it would have been too late to do anything to help you survive," Lorne said apologetically. "The visions are an ancient powerful force, or so I've heard on the grapevine lately. Darn tricky to get rid of, without the seer in question dying first. So what the Furies did is this. Bottom line, you're still you – but you also still have that unique Vulcan brain from last night, which is able to heal itself after a vision hits."

"WHAT?!" Cordelia screamed, uncaring of any nurses that might come running to investigate the commotion.

"She's still part-alien?" Xander asked, eyes huge.

"Undo the spell you did, right now!" Angel barked out to the Furies, no trace of friendliness on his face anymore.

"Wait, wait, wait a minute. Are you three definitely telling us that Cordy's now safe from constantly getting her brain fried, thanks to what you did last night?" Xander asked the sisters, who simply nodded. Harris quickly turned to face the vampire and said, "Look, if that's true and she's not any in danger – then wouldn't it be safer to wait until we've actually transferred Cordelia's visions to someone else? Why take the risk of any further brain damage if we don't have to?"

Angel considered the question carefully, and he quickly came to the conclusion that Xander definitely had a point. ( _But that's ONLY if Cordy's not in any direct danger, of course. Yeah, I'm gonna need to get some more details on exactly what sort of warding magic the Furies did on her._ )

To both men's surprise, Cordelia suddenly said, "Hey! It's my life, my body and my decision. That's why they're not undoing the spell." In response to everyone's looks, she added, "I mean if this is the only way I can hang onto my visions and keep fighting the good fight, then I'm willing to go along with it."

Xander definitely looked ready to argue with her about that. But at that moment, Wesley finally arrived into the overcrowded hospital room. So Harris just glared at the brunette woman, who sent him her classic megawatt smile in return; both of them knowing that Cordelia had won, at least for now.

"Good Lord, it's like the Black Hole of Calcutta in here," the British man grunted as he tried to make his way in. Then he saw the Transuding Furies, and his eyes went wide. "Oh my God, it's you!"

"Hmm, Wesley." The Furies checked him out both as women and as witches.

"I think I'm gonna hurl," Cordelia grunted, knowing what that meant before glancing at Xander. "And if you so much as even think of joining their little fraternity, Harris, I will personally make you regret it!"

"I, I haven't seen you ladies in over thirteen years. My word, but you still look as lovely as ever," Wesley blushed, ignoring that.

"You know the Furies, Wes?" Angel furrowed his brow. He didn't like seeming coincidences.

"We met once in 1987, I believe it was. Just before I witnessed the destruction of Sunnydale-" the ex-Watcher started to say.

"What?!" Lorne and Xander interrupted in unison. Both of them instantly started thinking about the reading the Host had done back in February, when Whistler had brought Xander to Caritas for the first time; as well as Odo's accusations and conclusions in the club last night.

Human and demon shared a look before Harris said it for both of them. "The manipulation started way back then?"

"What are you talking about?" Angel looked confused.

As Lorne started explaining everything, Xander drifted off into his own thoughts, oblivious to the look of concern Cordelia was sending him. ( _One thing's for sure, things just got a lot more complicated._ )

***

**Glory's townhouse, Cleveland, Ohio**

**December 15****th****, 2000**

"This is so damn unfair," Ben Maxwell muttered to himself, looking around the tiny room that had been set aside for him within Glory's residence. There was no point in trying to escape the townhouse or trying to stake out more territory for himself, even if he'd wanted to; the unemployed doctor couldn't afford to maintain his own place anymore, plus Glory's minions just got rid of anything of his which their deity had proclaimed she didn't like whenever she had control of Ben's body.

But that wasn't what pissed off the former intern. It was the fact that Glory was taking everything away from him, destroying his life one inch at a time. Everything he'd worked for, everything he'd earned, everything he'd cared about was slipping away and it felt like there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.

( _Maybe – no, I can't trust anyone. Least of all the Knights of Byzantium,_ ) Ben thought to himself in despair. ( _They'd kill me at once just to get rid of the threat potential. Maybe this Slayer which Glory's minions have been gossiping about lately..._ )

The man then started shaking his head in helpless denial, feeling what was coming soon. "No. No, damn it! I'm Ben. I'm Ben. I'm BEN!"

But Ben's efforts to maintain his identity were utterly futile, as his body was taken over by Glory. "I'm hungry," she said to herself with a smile.

Grimacing at the clothes Ben had had on, the hellgod walked out of the room and into the main area of the townhouse. Glory was then momentarily startled to see the minions battling with a number of vampires, before she quickly broke it up by throwing all three of the undead against the nearest wall. "All right, what's going on here?"

"Your Holiness, we have brought you the local Master vampires to interrogate about whether they know anything about the Key," the worshipper of Glory known only as Doc proclaimed. "They seemed rather reluctant to cooperate willingly."

Glory stared at the three bloodsuckers in complete contempt, as they got up off the floor. To the hellgod's mind, even the local Slayer had a better fashion sense than these – things. The vampires known as Spike, Drusilla – and she who had once been Jenny Calendar, or Janna of the Kalderash tribe of Romany gypsies.

Glory pointed at Spike, "If that's a vampire, why in the name of all the ten thousand hells out there is its hair that colour?"

"Oy, you bloody bint!" William barked out, offended.

"Yeah, I mean look who's talking! You think I can't tell how much dye you've been using lately?" Vamp Jenny taunted the enemy. The undercover gypsy had been turned after Drusilla had become aware of who she was in mortal life, back in the days when Angel and Buffy had been together in Cleveland. Both Spike and Drusilla found her useful, especially with the fledgling's knowledge of both the old ways and the modern world she'd been part of.

Unfortunately for her, that usefulness came to an abrupt end as an annoyed Glory punched her fist straight through Vamp Jenny's heart and out of her back – which caused the undead female to explode into dust. "You can't even brain-suck a vampire. They're completely useless," Glory snorted in disdain.

"The light of dawn. Death, demons and dragons! Green light, so pretty, no, no, no – it mustn't be like that..." Drusilla suddenly muttered crazily, having had a received a vision at the worst possible moment.

"This one knows something," Glory said excitedly to her minions, recognizing Dru's description of the Key's previous form. "All right. Strap her down, bleed her, rape her and torture her if you have to, but make her tell you where my Key is!"

"You think I'm gonna let that happen? You cheap, lopsided, fashion victim of a so-called deity?" Spike growled, going into game face as Glory looked outraged at the male vampire's description of her.

"We don't need him. Kill the male vampire!" Doc commanded the squad of bottom-feeder demons.

At once a vicious brawl ensued, as Spike and Drusilla started fighting for their un-lives. Glory just looked bored before she stepped forth to terminate Spike herself – only to find Ben fighting his way back to the surface. "No, damn it!"

Unfortunately for the hellgod, the human won back control of his body before she could do anything about it. Unfortunately for the vampires, that didn't lessen the loyalty of Glory's servants to her orders; but it gave them a fighting chance to survive, as Spike and Dru were both very capable and deadly individuals.

Because of the melee battle, William the Bloody and his sire didn't actually see Glory become Ben. The two undead things just managed to get away from the townhouse and escape into the sewers of the city, bruised and battered and bleeding as they left.

"Bloody hell, luv! That one was too close for my liking. Dunno about you, but I think it's time we got out of this pisshole city," Spike told Dru as they ran, wiping the blood from his face. "I'm thinking we let the damn Slayer deal with the god of bad hair perms, and come back in a few months to take care of her when Betty's least expecting it. Been meaning to look up old Peaches for a while now, anyway..."

Drusilla didn't reply, her head was too full of voices telling her what to do and where to go. ( _Daddy. No, not my daddy, the Angel-beast. And the kitten. And the nasty temptress – yes, my precious Spoike, we need to go to the City of Angels... _)

TBC...


	7. Judgement

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Not much else to say, except thanks to all those who continue to review and send feedback, and I hope you enjoy the latest chapter.

***

**Part Seven: Judgement**

**Outside the Cass County Jail, Fargo, North Dakota**

**January 19****th****, 2001 **

Whilst Buffy Summers and her family and friends were celebrating the Slayer's twentieth birthday far away in Cleveland, Rupert Giles wasn't having such a pleasant evening.

The British man had been picked up by the police department on a drunk and disorderly charge, and dumped into the local jailhouse containing around thirty other inmates to sleep it off. Actually, the only reason Giles had ever come to this part of the country was nostalgia; he and Ethan had passed through many years ago, and the mage had wanted to see it one more time as part of his bucket list of things to do before he died.

Unfortunately, an eager-beaver deputy had run an in-depth check on the foreigner with the annoying accent, and now it looked like Giles' past was about to catch up with him. The statute of limitations had not yet run out on most of his crimes, and the state of North Dakota had a long memory for such things – as well as a very cold winter right now, what with being right up against the Canadian border.

Whistler watched, unseen, as a somewhat hung-over Giles decided to make a break for it, using his magic powers to bust out of jail. The front gates to the place went flying off their hinges as the prison guards started milling around, wondering what the hell was going on. Then they themselves flew off in all directions as if brushed aside by an invisible giant's hand.

The balance demon kept watching as 'Ripper' used all his power and skill to overcome his confinement, commandeering the warden's car with which to escape down the street. Unfortunately, because of all the stress and confusion, he simply never noticed the Mack truck heading his way as the British bad boy ran a red light at the intersection...

Whistler acted, erecting a mystical barrier in order to save Giles' life. The truck simply folded up like an accordion before it could pulverise the stolen Crown Victoria, giving the truck driver a nasty case of whiplash but nothing worse as Giles sped on, the Englishman getting a bit of a thrill out of reliving his wilder youth like this.

Whistler just shook his head. It was occasions like these when the balance demon hated his job. But if the Powers wanted this guy to live, then his was not to reason why; his was but to do and NOT die.

***

**The Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles, California**

**February 8****th****, 2001**

It had been kinda rough on the 'saving the world' front lately, there was little doubt about that.

Lorne had foreseen an upcoming apocalypse after he'd read a geeky scientist called Gene Rainy at his club the previous evening. The anagogic demon had passed out in his karaoke bar before he could find out who the singer was, though. That was why he'd contacted Angel Investigations the next day, and why Angel and Wesley had hit seventeen bars today and tonight looking for Gene.

It had been touch and go for a while there, but the ex-Watcher and the soul-cursed vampire had managed to stop him before Rainy inadvertently destroyed the planet, thanks to his own foolishness and the machinations of a bunch of Lubber demons. But since it was that time of year when the supernatural started coming out of the woodwork before the annual apocalypse around May, Xander and Cordelia had set out to solve the murder of a man named Derek Bointon while Angel and Wes were dealing with their own problem.

"I see Cordelia's spending the night again," Wesley commented as he and Angel trooped into the hotel, the former Watcher had seen her car parked outside.

Angel made a noncommittal noise. Ever since Xander had broken both his legs during Halloween, Miss Chase had set up a room here for herself, insisting that she help look after the guy until he had fully recovered. ( _Thank God he'll finally be out of the wheelchair soon. I mean, does that girl have any IDEA just how much hot water she uses up for a shower and a sponge-bath in the mornings?_ )

"Angel? You're not still worried about Cordelia getting involved in that murder case, are you? I mean Xander told me how that Wainakay demon assassin was almost certainly working for Mr. Bointon's aunt Helen, and that the woman's been put under surveillance. Most likely the man will wrangle a confession out of her soon, those Halloween memories of his have certainly become very useful these days," Wesley said, noting the boss's expression.

"It's not that," Angel frowned. "Lemme ask you something, Wes. As far as you know, when was the last time Cordelia went out on a date?"

"Well, I..." Wyndham-Pryce looked somewhat nonplussed at the abrupt change of subject. He thought about it though and said, "I, I think it's been – well, a very long time. Yes, not since that Wilson Christopher fellow helped to impregnate her with that Haxil Beast demon spawn, if memory serves." Wesley suddenly looked troubled by his own words.

"Exactly," Angel nodded. "It just struck me, either she's lost interest in the whole dating thing or..."

"Or...?" Wes prompted him.

"Or else Cordy's already decided on a specific someone she wants to date, only the guy is either too stubborn or too thick-headed to respond," Angel finished up.

The subtext was perfectly clear to the British man. "What can I say, Angel? Free will is called free will for a reason. If, as I suspect, you're wondering why Xander hasn't thrown himself at Cordelia despite all the signals she's been sending his way, I can only hypothesise that he must have his reasons for his actions. It's been over a year, but the man still isn't very forthcoming about his past, y'know." Wesley smirked for a moment, "And it's not like he's the only one around here guilty of that sort of thing."

Angel suppressed a groan as he collapsed onto the couch. "Are we gonna have to have that conversation again, Wes? I told you, Angelus did a lot of things for a hundred and fifty years that I really prefer not to think about-"

"That's not what I'm talking about," Wesley interrupted. "Angel, for heaven's sake. I know all that I care to about that soulless demon, especially after that bad business with the Doximall last year. What I'd like to know about is YOUR past, after those gypsies restored your soul. Why you left Cleveland and Miss Summers, for example."

Angel groaned, he really didn't want to talk about that either. "Why do you ask?"

Wesley sent him a knowing look. "It's hardly a secret how that girl isn't exactly my favorite person in the world, and I'm sure that the feeling's mutual. But you two were in love, the most romantically cursed love I've ever heard of throughout the ages. Angel, I suspect you left the Hellmouth back then because you were afraid that Buffy would make you perfectly happy, but I've never been completely satisfied with that explanation. It's just – well, what with everything we learned about last year, I can't help wondering. How long before you two might get back together again?"

Angel sent Wesley a startled glance before a look of melancholy came over his features. After all, how could he explain to the ex-Watcher that Joyce Summers had warned if she ever saw him come near her little girl again, she would personally stake him herself?

***

**Glenville, Cleveland, Ohio**

**February 22****nd****, 2001**

Joyce was at home with Dawn, and so Angel had little reason to fear her wrath at the moment. Here and now, the middle-aged woman's brain had not recently imploded from an aneurysm, despite the surgery a few months earlier to remove a tumour from her cranium. Under the circumstances, she was very fortunate that Willow, Tara and Amy had used the skills taught to them by the Furies to do a few healing and protective spells on Joyce, and help save her life.

But Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn't thinking about that right now. She was thinking about the alarming increase in the number of crazy people that were showing up in her adopted city, and how it was amazing that Spike and Drusilla could have just up and left town like that.

( _This is insane, I should be glad that they're gone! Man, am I getting totally messed up or what?_ ) Buffy thought to herself in annoyance as she entered her apartment. She had her own place, nowadays; the Chosen One needed her personal space at this point in her life. ( _How in the name of all that's good and holy could I ever MISS someone like Spike? I know we beat each other up a lot, but God – I never knew I'd gotten addicted to that sort of thing! I really need to get a hobby, or a pet, or a boyfriend..._ )

Buffy's thoughts drifted towards a guy she had recently met named Ben Maxwell. He had seemed fairly cute, even if he was no Angel. She frowned, ( _Damn it, stop that! It's been a year, nearly two, ever since Angel left me. Besides, I don't need to cling to a boyfriend! Mom doesn't. So I don't, either!_ )

"Long day, sweetie?"

Buffy stiffened up, recognizing that female voice. They had crossed paths recently, and the Slayer had come out the loser in that fight. "Glory."

The mad hellgod exited out of Buffy's bedroom, holding up some of the Slayer's clothes in distaste. "Your wardrobe sucks, I gotta tell you. I can't stand it at all. How can you possibly show your face in public wearing this sort of crap?"

"Not all of us can afford to dress like a fashion model. Besides, I'm the Slayer. My first Watcher taught me to be practical, which means clothes that I can kill things in," Buffy replied, still feeling her way around with this woman who had proved quite capable of kicking her ass lately.

"Good for you," Glory dropped the Chosen One's outfit onto the floor without a second thought. With a thought, the insane creature yanked the dagger Buffy had surreptitiously picked up out of the blonde's hand. "If I'd come here to kill you, you could tell by the you being dead already. So play nice, little girl."

"What do you want, then?" Miss Summers asked simply.

"The Key. Why else do you think I'd come here? See, I think you know where it is. And that's a good thing, for you."

( _Dawn? She's gonna – no. Nobody's gonna hurt Dawnie on my watch!_ ) Glory's words had almost literally frozen Buffy's blood, though. She may have been the feared Slayer who had kicked both Watchers and vampires out of her city, but the tough act couldn't help the Chosen One much when someone of Glory's power threatened her little sister.

"Why?" the Summers woman finally replied to the other blonde's assertion.

"Well, basically, it's the only thing keeping you alive right now. Because you may consider yourself like a queen in the tiny little vampire world – but to me, you're just a bug. You should get down on your knees and worship me!" Glory suddenly shouted, her temper unexpectedly rising.

"Sorry. But you don't qualify for that sort of thing," Buffy dared to smirk at her, before seeing Glory's expression. "What?"

"Who do you think I am, one of those demon idiots you constantly beat up and slay with your itty-bitty Slayer strength?" Glory demanded. "I. Am. A. God. Twenty-five years ago, my two fellow hellgods threw me out of our home sweet hellfire dimension – they sent me here to die in your world because they couldn't kill me themselves. But what they didn't figure on was me escaping from my prison, and going home to smite their asses for that! NOW WHERE'S MY KEY?" Glorificus screamed.

Buffy was stunned by the diatribe. ( _A god? A hellgod? Oh, I need to talk to the others about this..._ ) "I don't know."

"Let me be clear about something," Glory said incredibly calmly, blowing hot and cold like the complete psycho she was. "I need the Key to go home, and I know everything I need to know about you. Your sister, your mother, your friends. I can kill them all one by one and make you watch while I do it. And there'd be nothing you could do to stop me; honey, we both know what happened the last time you tried. Well, I'm pretty sure you remember anyway."

Buffy shook her head. "Still not planning to help you."

"Then lemme try to convince you with a bit of godlike persuasion, huh?" Without further warning, Glory slugged Buffy hard enough to send her to straight to a hospital ICU, Slayer healing or not. Glorificus then looked at the Chosen One's broken body as it slid down the damaged wall and collapsed onto the floor. "Ewww. Gross. Note to self: Slayers are a lot more fragile than they look!"

***

**The Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles, California**

**February 23****rd****, 2001**

The hotel was dark and silent that night, as Angel had departed the city immediately this morning after receiving Willow's phone call about what had happened on the Hellmouth. Practically begging Wesley to take him to Cleveland – he couldn't fly because of the daylight factor, and he couldn't wait 'til nightfall to drive by himself either – the ensouled vampire and his human chauffeur had departed, leaving Xander and Cordelia to take care of the detective agency by themselves.

Which sounded fine in theory. But Cordelia's current state, namely a sexually frustrated human seer with a Vulcan brain, that was something which Angel and Wesley should have considered a lot more carefully before they'd roared off down the interstate heading for Ohio.

Because as Spike had known in a different reality, the thing about magic is that there are always consequences. Always.

The brain is a strange and mysterious thing. It is the seat of consciousness, the wellspring of identity, and the bearer of memories. But it's also an organ from which various hormones originate to control multiple physiological processes throughout the human body. Including one of the most vital processes of all: the reproductive one.

That was partly why Cordelia, wearing nothing but a flimsy negligee that left little to the imagination, was currently shaking within her bed at the hotel. She was starting to sweat a little too, because despite popular opinion she had been profoundly changed by her Halloween experience. Well into her twenty-first year of existence, tonight Cordelia was moving into the state known as _pon farr_; which, translated from the Vulcan, meant "time of passion" or "time of mating".

And there was only one person in this world whom she was currently interested in mating with.

Fighting off the effects of_ pon farr _a little, Cordelia's eyes snapped open and she quickly got out of bed. Wearing only her night clothes, the young woman made her way directly to Xander's bedroom and silently let herself in. Despite the complete darkness, she could see perfectly clearly: that regenerated inner eyelid serving Miss Chase well this evening.

Cordelia approached Xander's bed quickly yet carefully. She did not walk like a queen, the way she usually did; because Cordy had never been more turned on in her entire life. She felt powerful. Unstoppable. An efficient, unhesitating, instinctual predator once she got even a glimpse of her objective. That explained why she just pulled the covers aside and straddled Xander's waist, pleased to discover that the only thing he had on was a set of boxers.

"Xander? Wake up," Miss Chase cooed gently, lost in the grip of her raging hormones.

Right on cue, Xander woke up, or at least partly. He was alarmed at feeling a weight pressing against his legs, as he had finally been restored to full health a short while ago and the man had really hated those plaster casts towards the end. Then Harris realized just what that weight perfectly balanced across his crotch really was, before deciding this had to be some sort of dream. "Cordy?"

"Do you want me, Xander?" Cordelia asked him, finally surrendering to all her animal instincts.

"Ever since the first night we met," Harris admitted, as he still thought this was all just an incredibly erotic dream. ( _Damn, but my fantasies are getting pretty X-rated nowadays!_ )

"Then from now on, you'll have me. Just like I'll have you," Cordelia promised him, leaning down so that their faces were much closer together. The nubile young woman noticed her intended mate beginning to fully wake up, and so placed her hands on his head; her fingers finding exactly the right pressure points.

"My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts," Cordelia chanted the Vulcan mantra, her lust-crazed brain coming up with the words thanks to the memories of her Halloween persona. And with that, the female touch-telepath dove headlong into Xander's consciousness as the mind meld finally joined them together.

According to television and movie lore, the Vulcan mind meld is a very intimate form of mental contact: it essentially shares all thoughts and secrets between two individuals, merging their awareness, and thus it is not something ever to be taken lightly. But Cordelia wasn't thinking about that right now; she was too busy fighting Xander's instinctive reaction to drive her out of his head and restore his mental privacy. Oddly, she had underestimated his strength; Miss Chase had known her man was a survivor from the little he had revealed about his past, but the semi-Vulcan woman had never understood until now just how determined Xander could be if he ever set his mind to something.

On the other hand, though, SHE was Cordelia Chase, and there was a reason why this single white female all alone in the big city had never succumbed to the temptation of taking the easy way out. Especially after her parents had decided to flee the country without her, and Cordelia had been left with barely enough money to live poor before meeting Angel and Doyle.

With all the desire she had once held towards becoming a rich and famous movie star, Cordelia tightened her telepathic grip inside Xander's skull, refusing to be cast out. She then opened her mind completely and, in a move that took Xander completely by surprise, dropped all her barriers, letting him see her entire life as she had lived it.

Xander was inundated by sensory overload, just like when he had been linked to Odo last year. Thanks to the remnants of changeling instinct, he travelled down the river of years within Cordelia's consciousness, seeing and experiencing everything she had ever done in her life; Angel Investigations, high school, middle school, elementary school, and finally even kindergarten.

And to the shock of them both, Xander realized that he and Cordelia, not to mention Jesse and that girl Willow Cordy had always looked down upon at Hemery High, had all known each other in the days before Sunnydale had gone the way of the dodo.

The Chase memories ended abruptly. No longer feeling any need to fight the beautiful woman holding him in her grasp both physically and mentally, Xander likewise opened himself up to her completely. Cordelia subsequently experienced Xander's life ever since he was two or three up until tonight: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Including when he had almost been raped by his foster father, which had resulted in all his trust issues, and when Xander had been possessed by Odo – which had made the guy realize that he cared about Cordy a lot more than he'd thought he did.

Without warning, Cordelia terminated the mental link between them. Both man and woman just stared into each other's eyes after returning to the physical world, and Miss Chase switched on the bedside lamp. Xander opened his mouth as if to say something, but Cordy quickly placed a finger on his lips to shut him up. There was no need for words; she already knew what he would say, just as he knew what she would say in reply to that.

Miss Chase slowly peeled off her negligee, letting Harris feast on the sight of her naked, magnificent, gravity-defying breasts. Red, throbbing passion engulfed them both, as Cordelia leaned over and plunged her tongue down Xander's throat after capturing his lips with her own. The kiss seemed to go on forever as Harris wrapped his arms around her nude form, never wanting to let go. Before finally, inevitably, the brunette woman slid Xander's boxer shorts off and threw them away to the other side of the room.

Forty-eight hours later, neither of the two lovers had left the bedroom except to rehydrate their drained and sweaty bodies as often as required. The occasional sampling of cookie dough fudge-mint chip ice cream hadn't gone astray, either. But in a nutshell, the new couple's lovemaking had been so intense that it took two full days and nights before the frenzy of _pon farr_ finally abated, and the pair found themselves bonded together mind, body and soul.

Neither of them knew whether all this would happen again in six years, eleven months and twenty-eight days, in terms of what Gene Roddenberry had once called the Vulcan seven-year-itch; but to be honest, it didn't really matter.

Fate had special plans in store for Xander Harris and Cordelia Chase, after all.

***

**Outside a Watchers Council safehouse, Jamestown, Virginia**

**March 15****th****, 2001**

As Wesley Wyndham-Pryce made his way to the nondescript house, he wondered why the hell he had actually bothered to come here. Because he had plenty of other things to keep him occupied, besides a clandestine meeting on the other side of the country with his estranged father.

It had certainly been a hectic few weeks. He and Angel had driven across the country in the vampire's car and arrived in Cleveland about forty-eight hours later. They had taken it in shifts, Wes during the day and Angel at night, only stopping for the ex-Watcher to eat, drink and relieve himself when he had to. Wes had known that Angel had been unhappy over the delays, but he was damned if he was going to sacrifice his personal needs and comfort just so that the boss could get to his damsel in distress a little quicker.

Upon their arrival at the Summers residence, Wesley had spent some time talking to Joyce and Dawn, leaving Angel and Buffy to their own devices. The Summers mom had apologized for her behaviour back when she'd still been in the dark about the whole Slayer thing, but Wes had instantly brushed that aside. She'd been duped into thinking he was some sort of stalker-slash-pedophile, and so there was no need for apologies on her behalf. Especially not at this late date.

What had astonished Wesley was Dawn. He'd remembered Buffy's little sister as a belligerent and whiny prepubescent, thanks to the monks' spell, but now to his surprise, she was a teenager – and a rather beautiful one at that. The British man had had no idea about the Key thing, either, until Dawn had revealed the secret to him despite Buffy's orders not to do so. It had truly staggered Wes to realize that his memories had been altered without his knowledge or consent that way, but again since there was nothing he could do about it, he'd just put all that aside for the moment.

Wesley had spent most of his time talking to Buffy's three witch friends; Willow, Tara and Amy. As a lower-level magic user himself, Wes had been astounded by the power which he had perceived emanating from the girls. Then he had become horrified to hear all about Glory, and how the witchy trio had been unable to even remotely hurt the hellgod during the few times they had encountered her.

All the while, however, Wesley had become increasing worried about the lack of contact with Xander and Cordelia back in LA. There hadn't been even one single phone call, and when he had telephoned THEM, Xander had sounded exhausted, simply muttering something about it being all quiet on the western front before hanging up. So, not long after, Wesley had asked the three witches to teleport him back home.

The shock and embarrassment poor old Wes had suffered upon seeing Xander and Cordelia sleeping together naked within his bedroom had been utterly beyond measure. If he had still been wearing glasses instead of contact lenses, most likely Pryce would have polished them so hard the glass would have shattered in half. There had also been the slightest twinge of jealousy, but the British man had been able to suppress that almost at once; these days, Wesley knew that he and Cordelia had been doomed as a couple right from the start.

As for the whole _pon farr_ thing, that, too, was something Wes honestly preferred not to think about after the sleeping duo had woken up and explained everything to him. It had been very – disconcerting – to see Xander and Cordelia acting the way they now did. Easily able to finish each other's sentences, always knowing what the other one was thinking, good grief – barely twenty years old, and yet the pair were acting like an old married couple that had been together for half a century!

( _Well, as long as they're happy, that's the main thing I suppose,_ ) Wesley ruminated as he advanced towards the front door of the safehouse. ( _Angel and I will just have to figure out something to deal with that whole office romance problem somehow. Well, if he can ever stop thinking about Miss Summers for a moment, of course._ )

It was amazing, actually, that the ensouled vampire had ever managed to tear himself away from the Slayer, arriving back at the Hyperion about a week after Wesley did. It was also amazing that Joyce Summers hadn't tried to dust Angel, as she had once promised to do if he ever came back to Cleveland. Most likely, that was because the Chosen One had asked, nay, begged and pleaded with her beloved to stay with her on the Hellmouth until death did 'em part. Personally, Wes did not doubt that Angel would have told the Summers women about the whole shanshu prophecy, that the vampire with a soul would become human one day; and thus, he would have given the Chosen One something to live for apart from Dawn and Joyce.

The hope of a life together with the man her mother had disliked and gotten rid of years ago, because he'd symbolised everything Mrs. Summers hadn't wanted her daughter associated with.

But as said, Angel Investigations had been kept busy lately. A band of three-eyed killer Skilosh demons, a slime demon in Topanga, and even a Kleynach demon that had arrived to audit the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart. So yet again, Wesley wondered what he was doing here as he rang the doorbell.

"Yes?" a male British voice answered as the door opened a tiny bit.

"I'm here to see Roger Wyndham-Pryce. He's my father; I believe that I'm expected," Wes replied tersely.

"What's the password?"

"Password?" Wes asked in astonishment. "How the bloody hell should I know? Oh bugger this, I'm going..." He then turned around and began to stride off.

"Wesley! Don't leave yet, boy, we're not even remotely finished here!" a very familiar voice barked out as the door opened fully.

The younger Wyndham-Pryce slowly turned around again. "Hello, Father," Wes managed to say after seeing the man standing within the doorway. "Been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Indeed. Now the door's open, and we've got a lot to discuss," Roger snapped impatiently and gestured for Wesley to come in. Watcher habit simply did not permit him to issue an open invitation, despite the daylight factor.

"Really. I'm curious though, just why should I come inside that house? What's in it for me?" Wesley demanded in a hostile manner. "Give me one good reason not to simply turn around and go back where I came from."

The father looked surprised at the son's attitude. "For God's sake, boy, this is important! I wouldn't have contacted you otherwise. Now will you please cease acting like a spoiled brat?"

It was the worst thing Roger could have ever said to plead his case, but Wes nonetheless came into the safehouse and followed his father to a private room. Curiosity and a thirst for knowledge were two things Wesley had definitely inherited from his parents, after all. "All right. Now what do you want?"

"I see that manners are still not your strongest point," Roger glowered at his male offspring.

"Manners? Oh yes, let's discuss that, shall we? I was dismissed from my employment with the Council for something that wasn't even my fault, and YOU refused to even speak to me afterwards. Mum told me over the phone that you had forbidden her to ever mention my name in your presence again, never mind sending me the money I needed to come home. So if we're going to talk about manners, old man, I can't help thinking that I'M the one who currently holds the high ground here," Wesley hissed angrily.

Roger brushed all that aside as if it was inconsequential. "You've been living in Los Angeles recently, working with that damnable vampire-"

"His name is Angel. I hadn't anticipated you'd ignore common courtesy so much so as not to use the man's name, especially since he's saved the world at least three times over the past eighteen months or so," Wesley interrupted sarcastically. "But then, as we were just discussing, good manners aren't really your strong point. Are they?"

Roger ground his teeth together in annoyance. "Very well, you've been working with this – Angel person. And according to the Council's agents in Cleveland, you've both recently met with the Slayer stationed there who's fighting Glorificus, the hellgod-"

Again Wesley interrupted, "Let's cut to the chase as they put it over here, Father. You want to know everything I've learned with regard to this Key that Glory is searching for, yes?"

"That, and whether you know where Rupert Giles or another mage of equivalent dark power may happen to be located," Roger admitted.

"Rupert Giles?" Wesley echoed in confusion. He hadn't thought about that man for a long time, ever since Halloween as a matter of fact. "Why are you interested in him? Quentin Travers I could understand, God rot his soul, but you? Why?"

The elder Wyndham-Pryce explained everything in detail, including some details of that Council meeting back in August. Wesley said grudgingly, "A sound strategy, Father. I spoke with Miss Rosenberg, Miss Maclay and Miss Madison whilst I was in Cleveland: and they informed me that all their efforts to vanquish or even injure the enemy have been completely unsuccessful. Dark magicks of the type you speak of may indeed be the only way for Miss Summers to triumph against her adversary."

"And the Key?" Roger demanded, making a mental note to update his Council colleagues as soon as possible with this latest intelligence.

"Even if Miss Summers knew anything, do you honestly think that she would confide that information to ME?" Wesley lied without a second thought. He knew that the Council would try to kill Dawn at once if he told his father the truth. "The Chosen One practically despises me, Father. I don't like her much either, to be perfectly honest."

Roger merely stared at his offspring, as he suspected that his son had just lied to him. Wesley had had the same look in his eyes as when he'd lied about attempting to do a resurrection spell when he was seven years old. In spite of the annoyance, though, there was a smidgen of paternal pride in Roger's heart that his boy still held a Watcher's loyalty to his Slayer despite his personal feelings toward her. ( _Oh, never mind for now. If things get truly desperate, I'll wrest whatever information there is out of him one way or another._ )

They talked for a while longer before Roger escorted his son out of the safehouse all the way to Wesley's car, promising to send his wife the younger man's regards. He then stared as the rental vehicle headed off towards the airport. ( _Well, that was interesting. To think, Wesley might actually have grown a set of stones over the last few years! Well, I suppose they didn't make him head boy at the Academy for nothing. Perhaps there's a chance of salvaging the family name one day after all..._ )

TBC...


	8. Metamorphosis

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Alright-y then, people, time to start wrapping this fanfic up; there's only one more chapter to go after this one. Time to swing out the old and swing in the new, so to speak. Anyway, thanks again to everyone who's reviewed and sent feedback, 'tis truly appreciated. And I hope you all enjoy the penultimate chapter of this story...

***

**Part Eight: Metamorphosis**

**Abandoned warehouse, Los Angeles, California**

**March 18****th****, 2001**

Drusilla wandered around her and Spike's new lair, very much like she used to do in Cleveland before Glory had made things untenable for them in that city. She was an undead woman with a plan. Of course, the fact that Dru was stark raving mad meant that the plan was more than a little lopsided in places, but that was compensated for by her gift of second sight, by the voices that constantly whispered into her mind what she had to do. And why.

"Dru? Oh, there are you are, luv," Spike grunted, as his sire came into the main area of the warehouse. He noticed her staring at the pile of boxes on a nearby table, and grinned in delight. ( _No doubt about it, the big poof is gonna be in for one hell of a surprise soon!_ )

"Can I open one? Can I?" Drusilla asked. She saw Spike smile lovingly at her, and so she squealed like an excited child on her birthday. "Can I please? Oooh, Spike..."

"Just a peek, darling," William the Bloody said, as Dru eagerly reached for the latch on one of the boxes. "They're for Angel's big surprise party 'n all." He smirked indulgently as Drusilla lifted the lid, and seemingly inhaled in wonder. "Do you like it, baby?"

"It reeks of death. Oh, Spike, this will be the best party ever!" Drusilla gushed, throwing herself into his arms and kissing her boyfriend incredibly intensely.

"Why's that, pet?" Spike asked afterwards in a haze of pleasure.

"Because," Drusilla said simply, refusing to elaborate. But inside her mind she thought, ( _Because my kitten needs to be strong, strong like before..._ )

All around her, the fragments of the apocalypse demon known as the Judge waited for their number to be complete before they could finally be rejoined. Approximately three years later than it would have otherwise happened, but better late than never...

***

**The Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles, California**

**April 2****nd****, 2001**

Xander Harris enjoyed watching Cordelia sleep. Well, he enjoyed it a lot more than he enjoyed taking her shopping or listening to her occasional insults, anyway.

These two needed their rest as it hadn't been long since Angel Investigations had had to deal with an undead self-help group, the growing cult of a newly turned vampire named Doug Saunders. A bloodsucker that had somehow successfully used his motivational 'life-coach' approaches on the undead population of the city, a feat only possible in southern California of all places.

But that had been nothing compared to taking on the ancient vampire called Kakistos and his number one minion, Mr. Trick.

Those two vamps had shown up in Los Angeles during the previous month as, back in the 20th century, they had never met anyone named Faith Lehane in Boston. Someone who, oddly enough, was finally getting her life back on an even keel after YEARS of hard work and effort by her female Watcher. Kakistos and Mr. Trick, with the support of Wolfram & Hart, had attempted to set up shop in Los Angeles; but Angel's Avengers had come down upon them like the wrath of God, and now both bloodsuckers were dust in the wind.

( _Jeez, but I really don't like vampires,_ ) Xander thought to himself, as he continued to watch Cordelia sleep beside him in the bed. ( _Well, apart from the one I work for maybe. Damn it, I just wish that that whole shiatsu thing would hurry up and finally happen already! Then we can get rid of the damn visions once and for all, without Cordelia giving me that look every time I bring up the subject._ )

Indeed, the thought of quitting the whole vision girl thing was still anathema to Miss Chase. But Xander had already begun to think ahead, because he figured that they couldn't keep fighting against the forces of darkness this way forever. He and Cordelia were mere mortals, and so their time was relatively limited. Even though in the brunette seer's case, depending on what her Vulcan brain got up to in the years to come, her lifespan might be very different to his.

That was a source of some concern to Harris. Cordelia had bonded him so deeply that night when they'd first made love, it was now pointless for either of them to think of finding someone else – no other man or woman could hope to compete in the face of what they shared together. As Wesley had noted, they were pretty much a married couple in everything but name, even though they had not yet become engaged or set a date for the ceremony. But if Xander only had the traditional three score and ten years to live and Miss Chase ended up having two or three centuries instead, that might mean some problems down the road.

Harris had considered a number of scenarios, including trying to sever the bond between himself and Cordelia. But that was impossible; only death or the actions of a Vulcan High Master could accomplish that. Therefore, since such people didn't exist in real life, the situation was such that the two crazy kids were stuck with one another.

( _Which isn't a problem right now,_ ) Xander smiled to himself as Cordelia finally stirred and woke up. ( _Nope, no problem at all._ )

"Were you watching me sleep again, dumbass?" the young woman asked as she saw Xander propped up with his head resting on his hand.

"Good morning to you too, sweetheart," Xander smirked at her. "Would milady care for breakfast in bed?"

"That sounds nice," Cordelia said with a reluctant smile, turning to face him. "So what's on the menu downstairs?"

"I don't know. But in here, I'm the main dish of the day," Xander said suggestively, moving in to kiss her senseless.

"Xander! You have stinky morning breath, and your hair's a mess," Cordelia complained after almost sucking out his tonsils. "And by the way, doofus, WHEN are you going to move out of here and in with me at my apartment? I want to wake up in my own place every once in a while too, you know!"

"Are you sure we're ready for that?" Xander asked, his concern clear to Cordy through their bond.

"Well, lemme put it like this, Xander. Do you trust me?" the woman asked forcefully.

( _Good question,_ ) Harris mused to himself. Did he trust her? He knew all her secrets, just like she knew all of his. Their entire lives were an open book to one another, even the most intimate details. Xander knew all about that scumbag Wilson Christopher, just like Cordelia knew all about the girl who had been Xander's first – a female teen who had turned out to have the morals of an alley rat, the drug addict calling herself Sunny. Xander knew all about her parents' betrayal, just like Cordelia knew all about the shame at being the son of a prostitute.

"Yeah, I trust you," Xander responded to the question less than a heartbeat after she had asked it. "Because you're the only person I've ever fully let in ever since my mother died."

Cordelia gave him a smile, another deep kiss and said, "Then believe me when I tell you that this is something that we're both ready for. It'll give us a chance to get used to being together all the time, before we get married and start a family."

"WHAT?" Xander yelped as he jerked back. ( _Did, did she just say the f-word_? )

"You heard me," the seer said in annoyance. "Honey, relax – I mean it's not going to happen for a while yet, and it's not like I'm expecting the whole white picket fence deal either. But Xander, you know that I want to be a mother one day, and it takes two for me to accomplish something like that. And the fact is that you're the only one I'm interested in having kids with, pal. So start getting used to the idea of fatherhood at some point down the line!"

The young man's head was reeling, because he had no idea how to be a father – let alone a good one. Xander had had no paternal role models ever since he was six years old; Zeph didn't count, as the mechanic had only been interested in using him as a source of labour and practically nothing else. Cordelia's dad didn't exactly qualify for Father of the Year either. Neither did Wesley's father, at least as far as Xander knew. Even Angel's dad, from the one time that long-dead Irishman had been mentioned, hadn't been the type to emulate in being a decent father.

( _Oh Lord, what a mess,_ ) Xander thought miserably as Cordelia got out of bed and started to look for her clothes. ( _Maybe I simply ought to throw myself at the mercy of Wolfram & Hart..._ )

***

**Wolfram & Hart Building, Los Angeles, California**

**Later that night**

Lindsey MacDonald was a man full of hate. The lawyer hated the fact that ever since his right hand had been cut off by Angel ten months ago, his guitar had been gathering dust in the closet. He hated the fact that his co-worker Lilah Morgan could easily get under his skin with her handi-capable jokes and whatnot. He hated the looks of pity or contempt the clients got on their faces, when they first laid eyes on his fake plastic hand. But most of all, there was complete and utter hate for That. Damned. Vampire.

Another thing Lindsey hated was the fact that he wasn't allowed to go after Angel with a dozen of the law firm's SWAT teams, and burn the Hyperion Hotel down to the ground with all of the good guys in it. The Senior Partners had issued a strict 'hands off' edict where Angel was concerned; otherwise, the Champion and his people would have been killed off years ago. And even though MacDonald hated Angel with a passion, he wasn't suicidal enough to defy his bosses – who wanted the ensouled vampire on their side for the upcoming final apocalypse.

As Lindsey signed some forms in the lobby that one of the interns gave him and prepared to walk down to the basement to get into his car, he noticed his companion go silent and stare at the front doors of the building. ( _What's going on?_ )

At that moment, the Judge finished stepping through the front doors. He had finally been reassembled last night, and even though his abilities weren't back at one hundred percent, he had come here to destroy this branch of Wolfram & Hart at Drusilla's urging. Both because it made sense to take out the competition before they found out you were a threat, and because the horned blue demon's strength would grow with every life he took – and this place was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

One of the security men drew his pistol and pointed it at the Judge, "Hands up! Don't move!" When the Judge refused to comply, the guard opened fire.

But to no effect, as the bullets simply bounced off the Judge harmlessly.

"No weapon forged by man can kill me," he grunted, as the demonic killing machine raised an arm. The guard began to burn and combust, disappearing in a flash of flame and smoke as he died screaming.

The Judge smiled as he stared at all the people in the lobby. He raised both arms, and this time a bolt of energy arced out and shot through everyone with even a trace of human blood present, forming a criss-crossed network that froze everybody in place. Then the Judge's victims all died in fire and smoke, including Lindsey – whose last bitter thought was that he would never get his long-awaited revenge on Angel now.

The Judge growled to himself, as the building automatically began to go into lockdown mode upon his attack. Unfortunately for the lawyers who worked here, though, that meant they were locked up with a homicidal maniac who wanted to burn them all alive...

***

**Summers residence, Cleveland, Ohio**

**The same time**

Rupert Giles slowly came to with the worst headache of his life, and considering what kind of life he led that was really saying something.

The last three months ever since departing North Dakota had been busy ones for him. He'd been low on cash, and so Giles had decided to head towards New York; there were always opportunities for men like him with the demon mafia families there. There had been rumours of someone calling himself the Immortal trying to expand his operation into the area, and thus 'Ripper' had decided to investigate whether there was any chance for gainful employment in that direction.

Unfortunately, after meeting the Immortal's lackeys Giles had quickly grown sour on the whole thing. But you couldn't easily say no to such people, at least not without consequences.

"I think he's awake. His breathing's different, I can just barely make it out – but I'm pretty sure I'm right," a female voice off to the right said.

Blinking, Giles opened his eyes and focused on the woman who had just spoken. He instantly knew that this was the current Vampire Slayer; she reminded the British man of the Chosen One he and Ethan had once encountered in Nebraska during the 1980's.

"Told you he was awake," Buffy said to someone on Rupert's left. When Giles looked, his face became expressionless; he knew a Watcher when he saw one.

"Good evening, Mr. Giles," Roger Wyndham-Pryce said courteously. "You've led me on quite a merry chase across this nation over the last eight months, but I'm glad to finally make your personal acquaintance. It was my men who saved you from those demon executioners by the way, in case you were wondering."

"And you are?" Giles asked in a bored tone of voice.

Roger introduced himself and then said, "This is Miss Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer-"

"He already knew that," Buffy interrupted, staring Giles right in the eyes. She had recovered from the injuries Glory had inflicted upon her and her instincts were still top notch. "Didn't you?"

"Yeah. You're not the first Slayer I've ever encountered," Giles inclined his head slightly. He got up and then stared at Roger. "All right, mate, what's going on? And why aren't I dead right now? You and your Council have been wanting to kill me for over two decades!"

"I'm not your 'mate'," Roger said in distaste, stroking his beard. "And the reason you're not dead or even locked up in a Council dungeon like you deserve, is that I need you. We, that is the whole world, needs you."

"Why do you say that?" Buffy demanded of the Council representative. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on in terms of power plays and inside deals; and it was only the fact that Glory had beaten her with no more effort than stomping upon an ant which had prevented Buffy from automatically rejecting Roger's offer of help with the hellgod situation.

Still staring at Roger, Buffy gestured to Giles, "I mean, what did this guy do?"

"You name it, I've done it – well, just about," Giles smirked. "I mean I've never murdered anyone, but pretty much anything else? I hafta plead guilty, your honour," the British man placed his hand over his heart.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "This guy is supposed to help save the world?" she demanded of Wyndham-Pryce, who just shrugged in return.

"Save the world from what?" Giles demanded, dropping the comedy act.

"A hellgod named Glorificus. She's after something called the Key, which is located somewhere in this city. If she gets it and uses it to go home to her own hell world, the Earth is doomed. Which includes you, Mr. Giles," Roger said succinctly. He pulled a letter out of his jacket pocket. "I have here an offer of amnesty from the head of the Council. Help us save this planet from Glorificus's actions, and you get to walk away afterwards a free man – assuming you live, of course. Your predecessors for this job weren't that lucky, unfortunately."

Giles had to admit, he was somewhat tempted by the offer despite the lousy survival prospects. He was getting a bit old for constantly being on the run this way, and even though he knew he could never trust the Council to keep its word – at least not while Quentin Travers was one of those calling the shots – he found it amusing that the Watchers had become so desperate as to call upon him of all people for help. "And what assurances do I have that you won't stab me in the back the moment I outlive my usefulness?"

"None, besides my word on the matter," Roger said truthfully.

"I'll protect you from them, if it comes to that," Buffy suddenly spoke up, to the surprise of both Englishmen. "Look, mister, right now I don't care what you've done in the past – okay? All I care about is preventing Glory from killing my mom and my sister, as well as preventing that whole 'Hell on Earth' scenario from happening. You play straight with me, we'll get along fine. Try to screw with me, and I will personally rip your heart out. So, are you in or what?"

"I like her, girl's got spunk," Giles commented to Roger with an honest grin. "She's not one of the usual robots you people like to make out of the Chosen crowd, is she?"

"No, I'm not," Buffy pre-empted Roger's reply. "Now answer the damn question!"

"I'm in, of course," Giles said with another grin in her direction. "And there's no need for threats. For the duration of the emergency, luv, I'm all yours. But I do have a question, if I may."

Buffy winced in distaste at the Englishman's term of affection. It reminded her of Spike far too much. "What is it?" Roger asked Giles at the same time, noting Buffy's emotional display.

"This Key you spoke of. Why not just destroy it? Then this Glorificus creature can't use it to go home and bring about Hell on Earth, right?" Giles pointed out the obvious.

"The Key is, was, pure energy. Plus, unfortunately, we don't know where it is or even what physical form it's been put into by its former guardians," Roger replied with a quick glance to Buffy that signified to Giles how his compatriot didn't fully believe his own statement to be true. "And even if we did get rid of the Key, there's no guarantee Glory wouldn't end up eventually destroying the world in another way. The best bet is to neutralise the enemy once and for all."

Rupert nodded, that made perfect sense to him. At that point, there was a flash of light; and Buffy's three witch friends, Willow, Tara and Amy appeared in the room.

"Bloody heck!" Giles muttered as he moved back, able to feel the trio's combined power at once.

"I don't like him," Amy spoke up at once, glaring in Rupert's direction. "He reeks of dark magicks, he reminds me of my mother – may she rot in Hell..." Catherine Madison had stolen her daughter's body for a long time, back when the girl had been a high school sophomore, and so Amy still had issues about that whole thing.

Willow and Tara also found the use of dark magicks repugnant, the Furies had indoctrinated them all thoroughly about that sort of thing, but they were a little less confrontational with Giles about it. "Are you willing to swear a binding oath not to harm any of us?" Miss Rosenberg asked.

"Or through inaction allow harm to come to any of us, in any way?" Tara finished the question.

"Depends on what sort of binding oath you're planning to carry out, luv," Giles said flippantly. "Are you two talking about blood magic, or a human sacrifice type oath?"

All four females looked ill. Roger said reproachfully, "There's no need for that sort of thing, I'm sure. You three ladies will simply-"

"We don't take orders from you," the three witches said in unison. Willow then added, "You may as well leave, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce. Personally, I don't see how you can contribute any more in this matter."

Roger's ego was bruised by the dismissive attitude, especially from a young woman less than half his age. "Now see here-"

Tara spoke a word and gestured with her hands, and the Watcher went flying out the front door as it opened all by itself and then closed shut again. Unfortunately, less than a moment later, Quentin Travers burst into Buffy's apartment, holding the very same gun he had used to kill Richard Wilkins nearly fourteen years ago.

Quentin had been waiting outside the apartment, fuming all the while, while his colleague conducted the – deal with the Devil, so to speak. But when Roger came flying out of Buffy's residence, Travers charged in without a second thought, assuming the worst and deciding to take care of the situation HIS way.

Quentin took aim at Giles immediately, his innermost desires playing a role on which target to slay first. But as he began to pull the trigger, Buffy's foot lashed out and the gun went flying.

"You damned harlot!!" Travers screamed impotently at the Slayer, spittle flying from his mouth as she grabbed him by the neck. "I should have killed you years ago!"

"He's warded against magic," Amy called out, able to sense the truth with her powers.

"Shoulda known. Hullo, Quentin," Giles sent the second-in-command of the Council an infuriating grin. "How's life been treating you, old son?"

"I'll kill you with my bare hands, you fiend!" Travers yelled, even though Buffy was holding him in a half-Nelson by now. "You're a complete disgrace to your name and lineage! It's no wonder why your father and grandmother both died hating you!"

"My sodding wanker of a father I could care less about. But you shouldn't have mentioned Grandma Edna," Giles narrowed his gaze. Then his eyes went completely black as the British mage incanted a spell, a powerful one which he hoped would breach the wards Travers had cast on himself so long ago.

"AGHHH!" Quentin screamed in agony, as the black magic did its job and he was stripped naked of all mystical protection. Then his eyes went wide with fear, as Giles got an amused look on his face.

"You've been chasing after me for over twenty years, you pillock, even though all I ever wanted was for you people to just leave me alone," the middle-aged Englishman ruminated. "You're a right stubborn old mule, you are. That's why you tried to kill me just now; we both know it'll never be over for you 'til one of us is dead. So I can't help wondering – what would you do if you were in my shoes, hmm? I think we can all guess the answer to that..."

"Hey, you can't just kill him in cold blood!" Buffy said to Giles in exasperation as Travers fainted.

"Oh, he could do that if he had to do," Amy said darkly. "Believe me, I can tell."

"But it's not necessary, at least not here and not now. Please, Mr. Giles, don't sink to that level," Willow said urgently, unaware of the cosmic irony of her words or the existence of anyone named Warren Mears. "Mr. Wyndham-Pryce and the Council would most likely go all out to kill you if you did."

"Well, then, what do you suggest I do with him?" Giles demanded. "Because there are some enemies you just can't afford to show any mercy to, y'know. Those people will simply take advantage of your moment of weakness and come after you again, if you don't finish 'em off while you have the chance!"

"He, he's got a point," Tara admitted reluctantly, thinking of her redneck family who she had utterly rejected out of her life.

Willow suddenly looked like she had an idea. "In canis corpus transmuta!" she declared in Latin, and after a flash of light Buffy was holding a poodle in her hands.

"Aww, he's so cute!" Buffy laughed as she walked out of the apartment to give the small canine to Roger. Well, after she woke up the unconscious guy laying in the corridor, and then suggested both man and dog go home to the land of warm beer and warmer tea. ( _Hopefully, this'll make 'em think twice in the future about messing with me and mine!_ )

Rupert 'Ripper' Giles merely smiled indulgently at Willow, Tara and Amy. "Ladies, I do believe this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

***

**The Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles, California**

**A few hours later**

Angel was feeling rather frustrated. He was worried about Cordelia, and about all the visions she had been getting lately. The young woman had assured him that after going into _us'tar-ja _she had healed all the damage the visions had caused, exactly the way T'Cor had done it. But that still wasn't enough to satisfy him.

( _It's not like I'm getting a lot of support from the others on this either,_ ) the Irish-born vampire grumbled to himself. ( _Wesley doesn't want Cordy bitching at him that way any longer, and Xander's gotten so pussy-whipped lately it's not even funny anymore! Speaking of which..._ )

"Xander, what are you doing?" Angel asked, as he came up to the male human.

Seated at a table off to the side, the former Sunnydale boy put down his tools and gestured to the rifle he'd been working on. It was an effective distraction for Xander from that unsettling conversation regarding marriage and babies earlier this morning. "I'm working on developing our own version of Starfleet's TR-116 rifle," he said simply.

"Huh?"

"Look, Angel, are you sure you actually wanna get into this? Because believe me, you are so sci-fi challenged that my money says you don't even know what Starfleet is," Harris said with a groan.

"I haven't been living in a cave for the last century or so," the vampire riposted in annoyance. "Xander, I was there when television first began broadcasting back in the late 1930's. I can remember hearing about Star Trek during 1967, and I showed up three years later, when all the sets were dismantled after the original series was finally cancelled. So you don't have to worry about me being 'sci-fi challenged', as you put it," Angel finished up.

"Okay, if that's the way you want it," Xander replied, a little surprised. "Look, I've told you how I can still remember everything Odo knew, right? But up until now, I haven't been able to put that futuristic technology stuff to any real use. I mean I can't build a phaser, or a Universal Translator, or a tricorder or anything like that. There's no such thing as photon torpedos or warp cores or artificial singularities either, all that's just something a bunch of Hollywood scriptwriters made up as they were sipping their pina colada's beside the pool or whatever."

He saw Angel staring at him and added, "But I figure there's gotta be SOMETHING Odo knew about which I could use in the real world, right? I mean, yeah, I could probably make a Vulcan lirpa and maybe an ahn'woon as well, but sad fact is I wouldn't have a clue how to use either one properly..."

Xander saw Angel's confusion and explained, "Think of 'em as a monk's spade and a Roman gladiator's weighted net in that order. But point is, I want something that I can use. Me, Xander Harris, normal human. That's why I came up with trying to recreate the TR-116; it's one of the few projectile weapons Odo ever knew much about, and the only thing I could work up from what was available from the local gun shop."

"I see," Angel frowned. He stared at the weapon, which resembled a sniper's rifle more than anything else. Despite the whole soul thing, Angel had never stopped being a vampire; and so he shared the undead's general dislike of modern firearms. They couldn't kill a vampire, but the bullets surely did sting if someone aimed in the right place. "So what exactly are you planning to do with this thing?"

"Get it finished, first off," Xander sighed. "I mean Cordy's trying to come up with some sort of substitute for the Exographic Targeting System, and I'm trying to come up with something that has the same stopping power as a tritanium bullet, but so far it's not looking too good."

Just then the phone rang. Angel answered it, "Hello?"

#Angel-cake, we got a MAJOR PROBLEM!# the panicked voice of Lorne blasted across the phone line.

"Lorne? What's wrong?" Angel said gingerly, his vampiric hearing hurting from the demon's near-screech.

#There's an unkillable demon in town, and he's kicking ass! He's already taken out Wolfram & Hart tonight, and I mean just about everybody that worked there. As far as I know there's only one survivor left, she's hiding here in my club – it's your old friend Lilah Morgan. So listen to me, ya big hunk of hero sandwich. You gotta do something before the Judge kills anybody else!# Lorne yelped.

"The Judge?" Angel whispered in horror, as he knew the legends well. "But, but he was dismembered, his body parts were scattered all over the world centuries ago..."

#Not anymore they're not! What?# Lorne asked, obviously not speaking to the head of the detective agency. #Oh, boy. Angel, Lilah just mentioned something about your vampire friends Spike and Drusilla, apparently they're the ones who put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But never mind that now – you gotta sing for me, pronto!#

"You think that'll work over the phone?" the Champion asked sceptically, knowing that Lorne intended to try to read his destiny and put him on his proper path to deal with the current crisis.

#We don't have a choice! Have a conniption later if you have to, but hit me with your favorite Manilow song right now, buster!# the Deathwok clan demon commanded.

Angel obliged with a short recital of "Mandy" before Lorne barked out, #You and your friends – all of 'em – have to go to the Beverly Center shopping mall right now! Ask Xander and Cordelia to take you where they got their Halloween costumes last year, that's more or less where you'll find the Judge. And like I said, Angel – HURRY!#

***

**Beverly Center Shopping Mall, Los Angeles, California**

**A while later**

Drusilla watched happily as the Judge began his rampage on this part of the City of Angels. But suddenly she knew what was coming next, Miss Edith had told her what was going to happen; that was why she urged Spike to come with her. But William the Bloody was too caught up in the Judge's slaughter to listen to his sire any longer.

As Dru slipped away, Spike roared and ordered his minions to kill everything and everyone in sight. That section of the mall quickly became a charnel house, what with the Judge burning down anything with even a trace of humanity. But then the overgrown smurf got hit with a crossbow bolt.

"Who dares to attack me?!" the blue demon roared, pulling the wooden arrow out of his chest.

"I think that got his attention," Wesley said nervously. He knew that the Judge couldn't be killed by any power at his command. "Angel?"

"We follow the plan." The ensouled vampire looked worried and rightly so. Angel then said, "I sure hope Xander's finished by now. Okay, you and Cordelia run for it!"

"Like hell I will!" Miss Chase said angrily, and started firing towards the Judge with the prototype of the TR-116 she had in her hands. It was a long shot, but maybe the whole 'no weapon forged by man' thing didn't apply here as she wasn't a man, and she was part-Vulcan as well.

Unfortunately, the bullets just bounced off the Judge's chest just like the ones the security guard had fired not so long ago. Spike noticed and laughed in the direction of the Fang Gang, "That's not gonna work, ya dumb bint! You're just getting Big Blue here annoyed with that!"

Angel, Cordelia and Wesley didn't reply to Spike's taunts, they just ran for it in the direction of Ethan's long-abandoned costume shop. When they got there though, the crew of Angel Investigations got a nasty shock to see Xander being held prisoner by Dru.

"Don't you smell delicious, kitten? I knew I'd find you 'ere," Drusilla said with a dreamy look, sniffing Xander's neck. "Finally..."

"Let him go, you undead BITCH!" Cordelia screamed, raising her rifle to blow Dru's head off.

"Not yet, pet," Dru said, using Xander as a human shield as the Judge and Spike arrived. "Not yet..."

"This one is special," the Judge rumbled angrily, glaring at Xander as everyone except Drusilla stared at the apocalypse demon in surprise. "He is full of untapped power. Bring him to me!"

Drusilla eagerly obliged, and there was nothing the good guys could do; they were heavily outnumbered by now as Spike's minions finally showed up as well, and Cordy still couldn't get a clear shot at the female vampire. As he was yanked along Xander was confused about the Judge's proclamation that he was full of untapped power, but he knew there was no time to wonder about that; he was being dragged to his certain doom here.

"I hope I give you indigestion," Harris muttered angrily, no trace of defence mechanism humour evident anywhere. As the Judge reached forward to burn him, Xander decided not to just stand there like a sheep led to the slaughter; he leaned back and, using Drusilla's body as a fulcrum, the young man kicked the Judge in the chest as hard as he could. ( _I'm going out like I came in – kicking and screaming!_ )

It was like a sudden fever blasting through every cell of his body, as Buffy would have described it long ago and in another world. Instead of Slayer healing, though, Xander had something else to help his body cope with this deadly attack on his life support system; the remnants of being a changeling during Halloween.

Just touching the Judge was enough to send out an 'all hands to battle stations' alert within Xander's physical form, and his DNA – which had been imprinted with the genetic memory of how to achieve and maintain a changeling's abilities – woke up from its semi-sleeping state. It couldn't recreate a true changeling body to cope with the Judge's mystical attack, as there was no external chaos magic present to empower that; but it could begin to manufacture what might be called 'morphogenic enzymes', and restore a changeling's shape-shifting abilities in order to save the young man's life.

"XANDER!!" Cordelia screamed, as Xander got away from Drusilla – the young man never suspecting that she had actually let him go – and headed for Ethan's former shop.

"Come on!" Angel hissed as he grabbed the vision girl and ran for it, Wesley hot on his heels. Both men knew what Xander would do, and the ensouled vampire wanted to get his friends to minimum safe distance. He ignored Cordelia's screams as best he could, but then he collapsed as Miss Chase did the Vulcan nerve pinch on him.

"What have you done?" Wesley demanded of the brunette female, looking back fearfully. Fortunately, no vampires appeared to be following them; they had all chased after the Judge into the costume shop, following Spike's orders.

That was when the shop exploded.

It was all Xander's idea. He could remember enough about Odo's use of explosives on Deep Space Nine and elsewhere to have filled the building with enough stolen C-4, kerosene and fertilizer to make the Fourth of July celebrations look like a mere firecracker in comparison, before his friends had lured the Judge and the vampires to the killing zone. The plan had been to get the bad guys into the store, and blow up the Judge with a weapon that hadn't been "forged" in the strictest sense of the word. But unfortunately, the best laid plans o' mice and men often go astray, and Harris hadn't anticipated being captured by Drusilla before he could set off his explosives.

Wesley, Cordelia and Angel were blown back by the force of the explosion, getting hit by an eruption of light and heat as the gigantic fireball reached for the sky. As all three flew through the air and landed hard on the ground, the 'whumph' of sound finally caught up with them, assaulting their eardrums and even making their ears bleed in some cases.

"XANDER!!!" Miss Chase screamed again in heartfelt agony as she turned to face the scene of mass destruction.

To Be Concluded...


	9. Armageddon Outta Here

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Here it is, folks, the last part of the story. It's been a fun ride, but as they say, everything that has a beginning must also have an ending. I just wanted to once again thank everyone who's reviewed and sent feedback about this fanfic, I truly am thankful for it. And now, the big finale of "Alien Nation"...

***

**Part Nine: Armageddon Outta Here**

**Beverly Center Shopping Mall, Los Angeles, California**

**April 2****nd****, 2001**

Precisely twenty-six years to the day after Drusilla had foreseen it in London, death and destruction was rampant throughout this part of suburban Los Angeles. Basically, the present had finally caught up with the future and Ethan's former costume shop was no more. Dru suddenly wept, the tears running down her face as the vampiress witnessed the explosion Xander had engineered to stop the Judge's killing spree.

( _Lost, lost, lost. It's all gone away now,_ ) Drusilla thought sorrowfully to herself, picking herself up off the ground. Her clothing was smudged and dirty, there was broken glass everywhere and she could hear screaming throughout the mall. But she cared nothing about all that. ( _Oh, my precious Spoike. The naughty kitten's gone and done away with you now, hasn't he? My poor Willy, there'll never be another like him..._ )

"This isn't finished yet. You know that, don't you?"

Dru whirled around in surprise to find Whistler standing behind her. Immediately, she growled and went into her demon face, but she had to back off when the balance demon held up a cross to drive her back. "YOU!! I don't like you-"

"Yeah, well, the feeling's mutual, Blood Breath," Whistler said in distaste. "But see, we got us a situation here. Even though the game's not over yet by a long shot, you've done your job – accomplished what the Powers wanted you to do. So now, you're officially what's known as a 'loose end' in their plan. And therefore the question is, what do we do where you're concerned?"

"You won't kill me," Drusilla replied vaguely, her head bobbing back and forth as her psychic antenna vibrated wildly. "It's not what you do, is it?"

"No, it's not," Whistler admitted. "At least, not unless I have to. Balance is kinda funny that way, y'know? I often have to do things I don't want to, and more often than not, I can't do the things that I want to."

"Free will," Drusilla murmured. "You don't have it, but I do." She stopped and stared into Whistler's eyes, a crazy smile beginning to grow on her lips. "And you really don't like that, do you?" Dru began to laugh wildly, and luckily for her nobody noticed as the emergency service workers finally arrived on the scene of devastation, trying to get the fires under control.

"Are you done yet?" the man in the hat demanded irritably, as the laughter finally began to die down.

"Oh no, you naughty li'l man, not yet," Drusilla shook her head as the giggles finally ceased. "Not even by 'alf, I tell you."

"Too bad. Well, you got two choices here," Whistler snapped grouchily. "One, you get lost right now – out of sight, out of mind, out of the country even. What the hell, I hear Brazil is good this time of year. In this scenario, you leave and you don't come back to this city for at least fifty years."

"And the other choice?" Dru asked swaying, even though she already knew the answer to her own question.

"Two, you stay here and get found by your 'daddy' and his friends within seventy-two hours. They're gonna be real pissed at you, and in that scenario, you end up following your boyfriend in that express elevator straight to Hell," the balance demon said simply.

Drusilla just stared at her interlocutor, trying to bore her way into his mind with her psychic powers. But that failed to work as, despite appearances, Whistler wasn't human. Finally, she looked around the mall – and repeating her own words from back in the London of 1975 Dru said, "Oh well, ta-ta for now!"

Whistler watched the female vampire depart. It never felt pleasant having to help Evil as well as Good in his role as a balance demon, but if that was the way the Powers wanted it, he wasn't going to argue with them about the matter. Besides, there was too much still left to do, and not nearly as much time as he'd like left to prepare for what was to come.

***

**Caritas, Los Angeles, California**

**April 28****th****, 2001**

As the Host began singing Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" up on stage, Angel glanced at Cordelia and Wesley sitting beside him at their table close to the bar. The ensouled vampire was feeling concerned about both humans, albeit for different reasons.

Ever since that night nearly a month ago when the Judge had been blown up in the mall, Wesley had been acting different. More subdued, less prone to a quick joke or witty remark to relieve the tension. Angel suspected that it was because Wesley blamed himself for what had happened, even though he shouldn't have; there was nothing the ex-Watcher could have done to have brought about a better outcome for the white hats.

The store had been demolished by the blast, and pieces of the Judge scattered in all directions. There hadn't been time for Angel Investigations to collect them, at least not all of them, before the police and emergency crews had arrived onto the scene. Angel had had to do some creative requisitioning from the LAPD's evidence room later on, before Wes had arranged for the Judge's body parts to once again be scattered throughout the world. Oddly, the former Angelus had just felt a minor pang after seeing the remains of his grandchilde consigned to such a final resting place within the police precinct.

Because he'd been far more worried about Cordelia at that point.

There had been no sign of Xander at all after the dust had settled, so to speak, but Angel knew there was no way the guy could have made it out of the shop in time before setting off the explosives. The vampire didn't know how or why the human's remains had vanished without a trace, but that didn't matter. What did matter was that his belief that Xander Harris was dead was not shared by Miss Chase in any way, shape or form.

Almost instantly after screaming Xander's name that night, Cordy had inexplicably calmed down. She'd later explained to Wesley and Angel that Harris was still alive, that she could still feel his presence through their bond or something. Angel hadn't really gotten that bit, to be honest, but he nonetheless knew that his seer firmly believed Xander wasn't dead.

To Angel, though, it was pure and simple denial. The vampire had hoped that after giving her enough time to deal, Cordelia would come to accept Xander's heroic death, grieve his loss and move on. But that didn't look like it was going to happen anytime soon. So he was going to have to force the matter, for her own good.

"Angel, why are you looking at me like that?" Cordelia's annoyed voice intruded into Angel's consciousness, forcing the vampire to focus his attention outwards. "You've been staring at me for like a whole minute, it's starting to majorly creep me out. You've got something to say, could you just say it already?"

Angel glanced at Wesley, who took the hint and excused himself to take a leak in the bathroom. The vampire then said hesitantly, "Look, Cordelia. I was hoping we could talk-"

"You want me to accept that Xander's dead, even though he isn't. Well, screw that!" Cordelia said scornfully, her old tactless and blunt ways briefly reasserting themselves.

"Cordelia," Angel would have sighed if he'd been human. "I know you think Xander's still alive, I know how you've consulted the Furies and God only knows how many others over the past month or so about this. But there's nothing to be found! You've seen it for yourself, no scrying spell could locate him and no one could pinpoint his location anywhere on Earth. You've got to accept it, the man's gone and he isn't coming back!"

"You're partly right," Cordelia admitted frostily. "Xander's gone, at least for now. And it may take me the rest of my life to find him – but he's still alive, Angel. If Xander was dead, I'd know it, I'd FEEL it. Didn't you once tell me that Buffy Summers could always feel it whenever you were near? Well, if that's the case why is it so impossible for you to believe that Xander and I could do the same thing?"

"That's different," Angel tried to restrain his exasperation. "She's a Slayer, and I'm a vampire-"

"And Xander and I were bonded together during _pon farr_," Cordelia interrupted rudely. "You obviously have no idea what that means, Mr. Scowling Broody Pants, so please don't even try to pretend that you do. Look, all you need to know is that Xander's the other half of my heart, my soul and my mind. Only death can destroy that bond, and so I know that wherever he is right now – Xander can still feel me the same way I can still feel him." Her eyes suddenly glittered dangerously. "And that's ALL I intend to say to you about the subject."

Angel shook his head as Wesley rejoined his colleagues at the table. "Have I missed anything?" the British man asked politely.

Right on cue, as Lorne sang the best lyrics of the song and started dancing to his own music, a shimmering in the air appeared behind him. The shimmering quickly condensed in a swirly blue-coloured portal as the Host finally got a clue and turned around. And then to Cordelia's unrestrained joy – Xander came flying out of the portal and crash-landed onto the tables closest to the stage.

"What took you so long?" Miss Chase whispered to herself, before getting up to welcome her boyfriend home with a long, smouldering and passionate kiss.

***

**Public library, Los Angeles, California**

**A few moments earlier**

Winifred 'Fred' Burkle, former physics student and former runaway slave, came flying out of her own portal and crashed to the ground, just as gracelessly as Xander had done not far away in Caritas. Moaning, the human female dressed in dirty rags shook her head as she tried to focus, not yet able to look at her surroundings.

The brunette woman had suffered a great deal living in a demon dimension called Pylea for the last five years. Back in 1996, barely a few months before Buffy had been Called as the Slayer, she had been sucked through an interdimensional portal as part of Jasmine's long-term plan to manifest herself on the human plane. But with that rogue former Power having been permanently neutralized, Fred's return to Earth was the last bit of unfinished business engineered by the Powers to restore the original balance Jasmine had disrupted.

Fred slowly began to focus, her scatterbrained yet brilliant mind took in her surroundings and began to recognize the library where she used to work at. ( _Oh my God! I did it! I did it, I did it, I did it! I got us home! _) she thought ecstatically. Then Fred frowned as she looked around, (_ Wait a minute, where's Xander?_ )

It was a good question, and one that would be answered soon enough. Fred had met Xander in Pylea not long after that night with the Judge; the night where, just as Harris had pushed the button to detonate the explosives, a portal had appeared and saved his life by transporting him into that demon dimension. This was thanks to Whistler's actions, even if no one but the Powers would ever know that.

( _Well, Xander musta done it. I mean, the Judge had to have been destroyed, because hello, it looks like the world's still here. Although, how can I be certain of that? Up until recently, I thought my life here was just a dream. Plus bad things always seem to happen to me_, ) Miss Burkle thought with a sudden shiver. ( _Bad things. Bad things. Lots of bad things! I mean, gosh, how am I supposed to handle the pressure?!_ )

"Fred?" a female voice distracted the semi-hysterical refugee, who had arrived from a world where humans were considered cattle and slaves. Well, until Xander had helped engineer a bloody revolution during the last month or so and Fred had gotten the books needed for them to come home. "Fred, is that you?"

The young woman turned to face someone who looked vaguely familiar. She squinted and put on her glasses, trying to make out who the newcomer was exactly. Then Fred remembered; this was the librarian she had worked with five years ago. "Myrtle?"

The librarian looked shocked, and then as she came closer the happiness shone through on her face like the sun breaking through the clouds. "Fred, oh my God, you're back! I can't believe this, where have you been? You just appeared out of nowhere, you..." Myrtle stopped, staring at Fred's clothing. "What are you wearing? Oh my God, did you just escape out of Hannibal Lecter's basement or something?"

"Who?" Fred looked confused, before she dismissed that. Recalling all the details regarding what Xander had told her over the past month or so, Fred asked her former co-worker, "Myrtle, could you possibly take me to the Hyperion Hotel, or-or an apartment over in Silverlake? Because I, I, I've got a special someone to touch base with before I go home to Texas!"

***

**The Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles, California**

**May 7****th****, 2001**

"It's incredible," Wesley said, shaking his head. Despite how many times he had seen Xander do this lately, it never ceased to amaze him. "So, have you come up with any new theories on why you can't assume any non-biological shapes?"

Xander, looking like an exact copy of Wesley, morphed back into his own body after momentarily going through a changeling's normal liquid state. "Nope, sorry," the young man shrugged. "Guess we just gotta go with the obvious. Basically, I'm still human even though I somehow got some of Odo's powers back, which means I need to maintain an organic body – or I'll die. And since there's no such thing as subspace in real life, that means I can't morph into something the size of, say, a fly or whatever. No subspace pocket to store my excess mass."

"Yes, that is a pity. Still, maybe that's also a blessing in disguise," the Englishman said thoughtfully. "Because history is full of men who were motivated solely by benevolence in the beginning, and yet were corrupted by power and ended up the worst kind of tyrants and dictators. Nebuchadnezzar, Philip of Macedon, Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler – the list is endless. Perhaps it's better that you can't assume the full powers of a changeling, Xander, lest one day you start desiring to be worshipped as a god."

"Trust me. Never gonna happen," Cordelia said as she strode into the hotel lobby along with Lorne and Angel. "I would SO kick his ass the first time such a thought ever even crossed his mind!"

"And ain't that the truth," Xander smirked at his soul mate, before they started smooching intensely.

"Get a room," Angel muttered under his breath after seeing the duo make out like that.

"I think since Alex-cake just moved outta here, that'd be sorta counter-productive where your privacy's concerned," Lorne reminded the boss of the agency with a smirk.

Angel shrugged, that was true enough. Xander finally moving in with Cordelia was a good thing, both in terms of their relationship and finally having the hotel all to himself again. "So, Wes, anything happening around here tonight? That Haklar demon over in Redondo has been taken care of-"

At that moment, the Transuding Furies appeared in a burst of light within the hotel. And unlike their traditional calm and collected appearance, the three sisters looked terrified and desperate.

"WE MUST HURRY!" the female trio shouted in unison, as Xander and Cordelia stopped kissing and turned to stare at the newcomers. The time had finally come to collect on the Furies' payment for saving Cordelia's life during Halloween last year. "THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!"

The Fang Gang had no time to process that before the sisters grabbed Xander, Cordelia and Angel and vanished in a burst of light. Lorne just stood there in shocked surprise within the empty lobby and said, "Where'd everybody go?"

***

**Summers residence, Cleveland, Ohio**

**A moment later**

It was a scene of bloody carnage that was only surpassed by what the Judge had gotten up to in Los Angeles, about a month ago.

As the LA crowd materialized out of thin air, their nostrils were immediately assaulted by the thick, coppery scent of blood. Angel in particular could smell all the delicious, intoxicating flavours of the various sources of blood all around him, and had to suppress the animalistic glee and hunger of his inner Angelus. Then he saw Buffy Summers and if his heart had been beating, most likely it would have stopped dead at the sight of his blonde beloved.

Angel had seen her beaten and broken before, but this – this was beyond anything he had ever seen the Slayer take. "Buffy? Buffy, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," Buffy slurred vaguely. "Angel?"

"Yes, it's me-"

"My mom?" Buffy croaked out, the worry evident in her voice.

Unfortunately, Angel could see the lifeless corpse of Joyce Summers not far away. "I don't know, I-I'll go look..."

"No, Angel, Dawn. Glory – she came after us, somehow she learned Dawn was the Key..." the Chosen One seemed determined to speak despite the agony she was in. "You gotta find her. Save her. Please, you're the only one – only one – promise me..."

"I promise – BUFFY?" Angel shouted as the Slayer passed out.

"Angel, we need to get everyone here to a hospital!" Wesley called out, as he and Xander and Cordelia examined the casualties. The Furies were doing the same thing – to their sorrow, both Amy and Tara were now beyond any possible help, just like Whistler had been informed would happen in that conversation with the Powers all those months ago.

Only Willow remained alive. And even she was barely clinging to life after Glory's assault within Joyce's home, as the others tried to help her.

"Bloody hell." Everyone looked around at Rupert Giles, surprised to hear another British accent, as the man picked himself up off the floor. "Alright, who are you lot?" he asked, the only one still relatively intact after the hellgod's actions.

"The Seventh Cavalry, I guess," Xander shrugged, even as the rest started to get Buffy and Willow prepared for their trip to the emergency room. "Who are you?"

"Ripper Giles. Indentured servant to the Chosen One," Giles had a look of distaste on his bruised and battered face. "Cor blimey, but that hell-bitch packs a bloody mean wallop. Tore through everyone 'ere like they were – ah, hell, Joyce." 'Ripper' had a look of regret on his face for a moment as he spied the dead woman's body. She had been one of the few females he had ever respected in his life, apart from his grandmother, despite the short time he had actually known her.

"Who's this guy?" Cordelia gestured to a male corpse wearing armour and an archaic uniform, as well as a tattoo on his forehead.

"Ah, that would be the dearly departed General Gregor, the last of the Knights of Byzantium," Giles replied. "Thick as a post, but a good source of intel concerning the Key."

"The Key? You mean Dawn Summers," Wesley said, as he came over to Xander and Angel. "You're Rupert Giles, aren't you?"

"Do I know you?" the older man sent him a cursory glance.

"No, but I know you. Sunnydale, during in the 1980's," Wes said simply. "I wish I could say it's a pleasure to eventually make your acquaintance, but then since I'm familiar with everything you've done for nearly thirty years..."

"Not now," Angel barked out, even as the Furies disappeared with Willow and Buffy in a flash of light. "All right, Mr. Giles. Talk to me, what's the situation?"

"We gotta find out where Glory's gonna be doing her big going-home ceremony. Once we do that, we gotta kill the Slayer's sister," Giles replied emotionlessly.

"Never gonna happen," Angel went into his most threatening game face. "We're rescuing Dawn, not murdering her. Understand?"

"I don't think YOU understand, mate," Giles pulled out a cigarette and lit it, unfazed by Angel's vampiric features. "If Glory does her effing ritual 'n activates the Key, the walls separating all the different realities out there come tumbling down and we got Hell on Earth to deal with. Literally. All those millions of demon dimensions mixing with this one, it's goodbye, Piccadilly. Farewell, Leicester bloody Square. You get what I'm saying? One life for billions, you do the math!"

"So we don't let it come to that," Cordelia spoke up. She could vaguely remember Dawn from the ancient days when the Summers family had lived in the City of Angels, thanks to the monks' spell. That was why she didn't want her one-time protégé to die anytime soon. "Why can't we just swoop in to the rescue the way we always do?"

"One, time isn't exactly on our side – according to Gregor, that ritual's taking place tonight. What's more, I don't have a buggering clue where it'll be. And two, Glory's a bloody GOD!" Giles shouted the last word. "Look how far we got trying to stop her, or even hurt her. So if you people have got anything that can take on a deity, I'd be damn glad to hear what it is!!"

Xander shared a look with Wesley, their recent conversation in the Hyperion immediately springing to mind. "I'll do it. So, did you happen to see which way she left?"

***

**Glory's townhouse, Cleveland, Ohio**

**May 8****th****, 2001**

Not long after the midnight hour, Dawn Summers watched the scene of near-bedlam before her with ever-increasing terror.

Earlier on, she had been abducted from her house by the deranged hellgod after Glory had killed just about everyone that had been in her way. Dawn had been brought here to the enemy stronghold, and told she was going to be bled to death in order to activate the portal that would take Glorificus home – and destroy the multiverse at the same time. Miss Summers had been poked, prodded, locked up, felt up, and then bound and gagged in order to restrain her.

The fourteen-year-old girl had just wanted the nightmare to end, and go home. But then Glory had started acting – irrationally. Well, more irrationally than she normally did anyway; the hellgod had started displaying alarming glimpses of humanity, such as guilt and mercy and hurt feelings.

"The cloak between me and Ben is fading! I almost helped this little brat escape just now. I actually wanted to do it! I can't take this any longer..." She grabbed hold of Jinx. "Get him out of me! I – no, no, no! He's coming! Hold me down, all of you! Don't let Ben go!"

The demon worshippers all obeyed her orders as Jinx, Murk, Dreg and two others named Gronx and Slook restrained the male human as he reclaimed his body. "Lemme go! You can't kill her. I won't let you kill an innocent!" Ben shouted.

He morphed back into Glory. "You can't stop me, you stupid human meat-sack!" She turned to Doc, "You! Do your mojo, make an incision, or removal, or whatever you've gotta do. Just get him out of me! I'm, I'm thinking Ben's thoughts, and – and I'm feeling his feelings!"

"Forgive me your Worship, but you've undertaken terrible magicks in preparing to open that portal. Nothing comes without a price, and this – is yours," the demon who looked like a meek and inoffensive old man said to her regretfully.

"Gods don't PAY!" Glory screamed. Then she turned into Ben again.

The doctor suddenly looked like he was gonna throw up. "Oh, God, I remember, I can feel it! I can smell it, all that blood. Glory, she-she killed – she slaughtered hundreds of them, the monks, the Knights, I-I think I'm gonna be sick..."

The demon worshippers looked disgusted as the smelly vomit erupted from the man's mouth after he turned his face to the side. But still, they didn't disobey orders and let Ben go. "Fetch the doctor's drugs. Inject him with a sedative!" Doc commanded, having gotten an idea.

"But what will that do to the almighty Glorificus?" Dreg demanded.

"She is a god; she cannot be hurt or killed. Hurry!" Jinx ordered him.

"NO!!" Ben screamed. "No, no, no!" He struggled wildly, but to no avail. Dawn watched in horrified sympathy, the cloaking magic having faded away so much that she could now remember how Ben was Glory and Glory was Ben. She winced as Murk drugged the former intern right up to the gills, which allowed Glory to take over after Ben was rendered unconscious.

"At last! Well done," the hellgod praised her worshippers. Then effortlessly breaking free of the grip of her minions, Glory got up and started pacing around. "Okay, all of you get your asses in gear. We're heading for the site of the ritual right now!"

***

**Outside an abandoned warehouse, Cleveland, Ohio**

**A few hours later**

The time for the final battle had come.

Glory could feel it. She had been waiting for an eternity – well, twenty-five years anyway – and it had all come down to this. Soon, soon it would be dawn and she would go home to the hell she'd come from, where she was going to rain down super-sized portions of slaughter, mayhem and bloodshed upon her enemies. But first, she was going to have to deal with the pathetic insects that were going to try to stop her from using her Key to rip apart the fabric separating all the countless realities out there.

The hellgod looked around at her collection of brain-suck victims, who had all converged into the area thanks to her summons. This was where Spike and Drusilla and Vamp Jenny had once lived, and now the army of crazy people had built a tower outside the warehouse for Dawn to be bled as slowly as possible, upon a certain point at a certain time. The young girl was already up on top of the tower, secured tightly; the Key could do nothing but pray that her big sister would show up in the nick of time and save her, the way she always did.

( _Let 'em come,_ ) Glory thought smugly. ( _There's nothing they can do to stop me now! It's almost time. Almost time – no, you pathetic worm!_ ) the demonic god tried to suppress Ben, who was beginning to rouse himself from the drugs. ( _You can't stop me either! Once I go home, you cease to exist! Just a little while longer!_ )

"Well, look at you! Talk about a hopeless skanky fashion victim." Glory looked up to see a brunette woman standing there and then Cordelia Chase added, "Where'd you get that dress? The Salvation Army?"

"That's it – you're dead!!" Glory advanced on her, then suddenly stopped and started wobbling. As if she was feeling weak.

Cordelia, having led her people here after a last-minute vision from the Powers, had a big smile on her face. She yelled, "Hey, you killer bitch! Catch!!"

The seer pulled the Dagon sphere out of her pocket; a device Buffy had acquired from the last monk of the Order of Dagon designed to repel the hellgod, and threw it at Glory. She instinctively caught it, and the initial shock from the artefact incapacitated the hellgod for a brief moment.

The mad blonde screamed in pain, as she dropped the Dagon sphere. She never noticed Cordelia running for it as Giles and Wesley stepped up to bat, being too busy crushing the glowing orb underneath her feet.

"Kali, Hera, Kronos, Janus...air like nectar, thick as onyx..." Giles chanted, his eyes completely black once more.

"Cassiel by your second star, hold my victim as in tar!" Wesley shouted, as Glory suddenly found herself unable to move.

"I. OWE. YOU. PAIN!!" 'Ripper' yelled, as blue-white lightning shot out of his hands and then Wesley hit Glory as well, with a fireball that had formed in his palm.

Glory didn't know what was going on, how things could have degenerated so quickly like this. Her body felt like it had been mortally wounded, and she was busy fighting off an assault from within as well as without. ( _Stop fighting me, you IDIOT! Don't you get it, Benjy? I'm the only thing standing between you and death right now!_ )

Finally the assault ended, and Angel stepped forward with Vocah's scythe (a gift to Buffy from almost a year ago) to cleave Glory's head from her shoulders. But despite how weakened she was, Glory was nonetheless still a god, and so that didn't work. The weapon simply bounced off her neck, putting Angel off-balance.

"I need a brain to eat. You'll do!" Glory shouted. Due to her being somewhat confused and disoriented, she had failed to notice that Angel was a vampire; she could smell the soul and in the heat of the moment assumed that he was human. Thus Glory buried her fingers into Angel's head with a flash of light, and tried to drain what she needed from him.

Unfortunately for her, that meant that one of the laws of thermodynamics came into play. If a closed system is not at equilibrium, heat and energy flow from the fuller container to the lesser one until a balance is achieved. That was why Glory's victims were always human; they had more mental energy than she did, and could give her what she needed.

But a vampire isn't human, and so, to her shock and horror, Glory felt her energy drain even further as a screaming Angel absorbed what she had to offer – instead of the other way around. The inner vampire demon was instantly killed by the god's hellish energies, Angelus shrieking and disappearing into oblivion; but strangely, Angel's human physiology was restored by the regenerative material stolen from Glory's victims. Against all odds, he was suddenly mortal now.

The shanshu prophecy had been fulfilled.

Screaming like a banshee, Glory hurled Angel away from her after withdrawing her fingers out of his head. Wesley and Giles were the next to follow. The minions all finally clustered around their deity, "Oh, most sweaty-naughty-feelings-causing one, should we-" one of them started to say.

"Go guard the girl. This is a, this is a, a-" Glory tried to spit out, her mind not exactly working at full power any longer.

"Diversionary tactic?" her minion asked.

"Go! Guard!" the hellgod yelled, delving into reserves of strength she didn't know she had. "You know, you try and try but a god's work is never done..."

"Funny thing though, how even gods can be killed," a male voice, this one belonging to Xander Harris, caught Glory's attention. "So I'd tell you to say your prayers, but who are you going to pray to – yourself?"

This time, Glory knew her intended victim was a human. Snarling, she came forward to brain-suck him completely. But to her disbelief, the human melted into an orange gelatinous liquid right in front of her eyes.

And then the liquid shot forward and rammed itself up her nose, blasting its way into her body via her nostrils and violating her innermost self. In the short time he had available, Xander discovered Ben's presence, and learned all of Glory's secrets. The hellgod screeched in fury, expelling the sentient fluid from her physical form. But it was too late, the damage had already been done.

"So that was your plan, huh?" Xander asked, as he resumed his own body. "Sorry, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to remove the miracle ingredient tied up there right the hell now."

"NO!!" Glory hollered, as Xander morphed into a Baneriam hawk – a bird of prey with exceptional eyesight, which Odo had once encountered – and immediately flew up towards the top of the tower, beyond her reach. "No, no, NO!!" There was no time to do anything about it though, as Glory found herself under magical attack once more; this time by the Transuding Furies.

"No! Stay away from me!" Dawn screamed at the top of the tower, as Doc approached her with a big scary knife.

"Sorry, kid. But her Splendidness is running a bit late, you see, so if she can't be here in time to bleed you..." Doc ignored the Key's hysterical screams and moved towards Dawn to begin the bloodletting ritual, and destroy the world.

"Shallow cuh – aaaaaggghhh!" the hellgod worshipper cried out in pain before he could slice open Dawn's stomach. He looked down to see an orange liquid wrapping itself around his crotch and waist, the gelatinous fluid squeezing and then yanking him backwards, away from the Key.

"WHO DARES-!" Doc screamed, bringing the knife down to bear. But it was pointless trying to stab a liquid; the fluid just formed a hole around the weapon as Doc inadvertently stabbed himself, before it let him go and then assumed human form.

"Have a nice trip," Xander said sarcastically, before he pushed the howling, swearing, human-looking demon off the tower.

As Xander released Dawn and started to escort her to safety, down below the Furies were keeping the under-strength Glory busy, and both Wesley and Giles were finishing off the last of her minions. The world was safe, but the white hats were still in the fight of their lives.

All the magic users finally combined their powers, and hit the hellgod with everything they had. Even Glory's strength had its limits; and so exhausted, battered and worn out, Ben finally came to the surface once more.

"So, Dr. Maxwell," Giles said, recognizing the man Buffy had dated a few times at her workplace. "It was you all along, was it? I should have guessed." The Englishman was referring to Gregor's assertions about the unknown male host Glory inhabited.

"Please – help me," Ben begged pathetically as he lay flat on his back.

"We can't help you. No one can. They never could; I mean, this is what you were born for," Wesley told him sadly.

"Then – kill me," the doctor croaked out, having finally realized death was the only way of escaping the torture his life had become.

Wesley and Giles stared at one another. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," 'Ripper' quoted from the TV show he had once enjoyed watching when he'd been younger.

"Indeed," Wesley agreed, having learned some Star Trek knowledge himself from his co-workers. He suddenly reached down and put his hand over Ben's nose and mouth, holding them shut. Ben struggled weakly as Giles kept him still, surprised that his compatriot was able to do this so easily. Soon enough, Ben went limp and cold.

"It had to be done. Otherwise Glory would have eventually re-emerged and made the world pay for such a misplaced act of mercy," Giles said, looking at Angel – who was staring at him and Wesley with a strange expression on his face. "Right, well, I guess that's it then. Tell your father that I'm gone, Pryce; and that a deal's a deal, I don't expect to hear from him and his Council ever again."

As Giles left, Cordelia finally came up to join the victorious heroes. "Where's Xander?" she asked, looking worried.

"Right here," Harris came onto the scene, his arm around Dawn's shoulders.

"Dawn!!" Angel shouted, instantly grabbing her into a tight embrace as Xander and Cordelia kissed briefly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I – Angel? You're warm. As in human warm!" Dawn exclaimed with wide eyes. Of all the surprises she'd had over the last twelve hours, this was the most pleasant one by far.

"Yeah, I got a heartbeat now and everything. Not too sure how that happened, exactly," the former vampire admitted, seeing everyone's looks. "Come on, Dawnie, let's take you to the hospital and find Willow and Buffy. I'm sure they'll be really glad to see you."

***

**Just outside the former Sunnydale town limits, southern California**

**May 16****th****, 2001**

The mission had been accomplished, the game was over and now all the players were moving on.

Angel had decided to stay in Cleveland with Buffy and Dawn. With Joyce dead and himself human, the Summers women needed him now a lot more than the citizens of Los Angeles did. The Furies had gone back to LA after making sure that Willow was going to be alright, and so had Wesley; once there though, he had started to look for a new job as Angel Investigations had officially closed for business.

Lorne had resumed work at Caritas, Whistler had been given a new assignment by the Powers, and Lilah Morgan had disappeared. The Senior Partners had abandoned the Los Angeles branch of the firm, after learning what had happened with Angel and receiving a rather nasty warning from the PTBs.

Skip, who had almost forgotten that Jasmine had ever existed, was living the life of a retired mercenary. Kendra and Faith, on the other hand, were still living the relatively simple life of potential Slayers, waiting to be Called. Giles had left the country, and was currently a 'gentleman of leisure'.

In Texas, Fred had been introduced to a number of shrinks by her parents. Drusilla was enjoying herself with a Chaos demon in South America. Quentin Travers was still a poodle, despite the best efforts of the Council's mages to undo Willow's handiwork, and Roger Wyndham-Pryce had been temporarily promoted in his place. And as for Xander and Cordelia...

"So this is where it all began for us, huh?" the seer asked her beloved, as Miss Chase looked down at the remains of the place where she'd been born. "I wasn't expecting to see a lake here, though."

It was true; after the Furies had done what Robson had asked of them, the giant crater swallowing Sunnydale had stopped just short of reaching the coastline, leaving a thin strip of land to dam off the ocean. But over the last fourteen years, a combination of rain and salt water that had entered through the porous bedrock had formed California's newest lake.

"Neither was I," Xander replied to his girlfriend's comment. "Not too surprising though, if you think about it. According to Lorne, a lot of vampires used to live here. Sunnydale used to have a whole multitude of underground tunnels and caves, which is probably how the ocean came in and buried the place a few years later."

"You ever wonder what our lives would have been like if that had never happened, if we'd been raised here instead of the big city?" Cordelia suddenly asked.

"No. Well, at least not anymore."

"Huh? Why not?" Miss Chase looked confused.

"Because Lorne once told me that for some reason he couldn't understand, my destiny went majorly off-track by moving to LA when I was six. That means if Sunnydale had never been destroyed, I'd be living here," Xander gestured to the lake. "And THAT means we wouldn't be together right now. Because I figure odds are you would have ended up going to LA after that thing with the IRS, what with your acting ambitions after high school. Hell, I probably would have never even known you, Cor. So no, despite how crappy my childhood was, I don't think about what things would be like if the California Hellmouth still existed."

Cordelia felt a fiery warmth in her stomach after hearing that. Then Xander got down on one knee and said, "What I prefer to think about is whether or not you'll consent to be my wife." He brought out a HUGE diamond ring and presented it to her. "Cordelia Chase, will you marry me?"

The young woman was stunned, completely flabbergasted. Not even the recent news from Whistler that she was no longer Angel's vision girl, that there would be no more visions coming her way ever again, had hit her so unexpectedly. She stammered, "Xander, wh-where did you get that? Because I know for a fact you can't afford something like this!"

"What can I say, honey? I decided to look for Glory's lair after all the excitement was over and I found all sorts of interesting knick-knacks there. This was one of them," Xander grinned at her, obviously not having lost all of his teenage street habits.

"You..." Cordelia started to say, before deciding against it and putting on her engagement ring. "Oh, wow. It's like a perfect fit!"

"So is that a yes?" Xander asked regarding his proposal.

"YES, you big dorkhead!" Cordelia admired the huge rock on her finger for another moment before giving her fiancé an equally huge kiss, and then engaging an intense mind meld to prove to Harris how she really felt right now.

When all of a sudden there was a flash of light and a haughty male voice said, "Now THIS is just too interesting to ignore."

Xander and Cordelia broke off, and the young man's eyes went wide. "What the-? No, it's not possible. You can't be him! He's just a made-up character on TV!"

The being who looked like Q from Star Trek simply sniggered in amusement. "How do you know that, mon ami? The multiverse is ever-growing; what's real in one universe can be mere fantasy in another, and vice versa. Thing is, I was passing by this dimensional neck of the woods and saw you two going at it, so I just had to stop and say 'hi'. Oh, and I have some friends you just HAVE to meet..."

He snapped his fingers and all three vanished in another burst of white light, leaving this part of the nation alone and deserted for the time being.

The latest journey of a human changeling and a human Vulcan had only just begun.

THE END


End file.
